DAY TRIP FROM NAIROBI
Treasured Tea A tea gourmand picks up a cup with a shark tooth edge. Swirls some tea in it. Puts in a little milk to test it’s colour. And tastes the brew, every hour. Teas brought to super markets are blends that will ensure consistency of taste. But it is the small holders whose teas change every harvest, along with climatic conditions, that are producing the best quality teas. Tea farms like Kiambethu in Limuru, where just the leaf bud is hand picked, then sent to a factory close by, before it has a chance to start oxidising.
38 | NDEGE NEWS DECEMBER 2021 - FEBRUARY 2022
According to Fiona Vernon of Kiambethu Farm, “pluckers tend to go back to the same rows and bushes they picked before - picking them carefully - that means good tea for the factory, farmer and plucker. Tea picking machines are rather like a lawn mower and go across the bush taking more stalk which does not make the best quality tea. The soft bud and first leaf will probably make the best tasting tea. The second leaf does not make a poorer grade, it is just a larger more granular tea that does not brew so
strong. The stalks are separated from the leaf and are used for the lower grades of tea.” Even pruning, which is done harshly every three years after which a bush is put to rest for three months, is better done by hand. Cutting stems at an angle, brings the bush back quicker than a machine’s lopping. Hospitality has been linked to tea ceremonies in the East where the drink has been revered for the longest time. Tea, the infusion of Camilia sinens which began in China
