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O n Christmas Day at Satemwa Tea Estate, the tea is flushing at around one inch per day. As the creeping leaves and stems click and brush past each other, Chip Kay claims he can sit among the plants in his fields and hear the tea growing. Such rapid growth has been a natural advantage for Malawi and the rest of Africa's tea industry. Chip's son, Alexander, currently runs Satemwa Estate. He's an educated and passionate agronomist with an abundance of energy and a progressive outlook, and he's helping to lead a different kind of rapid tea charge in Malawi. Traditionally, the country's tea fields have supplied a high-yield, large-leaf crop most suitable for CTC bulk manufacture. An acronym for "crush, tear, curl," CTC is a processing method typically used for black teas that are components in blends. But Alexander and Satemwa Tea Estate are at work on carving out a specialty market for Malawian teas—one that is still in its early stages, but has the potential to change the country's tea identity. EUROPEAN PLANTING Nyasaland—as Malawi was then known—exported more than 1 million pounds of tea to Europe. In the 1940s, tea grew on over 18,500 acres in Malawi, and a third region was established, in the northern region of Nkhata Bay. Satemwa Estate was first planted back in 1923 by Scottish pioneer Maclean Kay, who had been a rubber planter in Malaya. At that time, the estate was known as Hunterton and was growing tobacco. Word had reached Kay of the big profits being made in tea in Nyasaland, so the following year, he seeded an experimental field of tea. This "museum plot" of Satemwa Estate is still a high-yielding section of the garden. In 1928, the Kay family imported Africa's first Camellia sinensis var. assamica seeds from Assam. This variety—high yielding and well suited to the tropical climate—thrived in Malawi and became increasingly popular throughout Africa as new growing regions were planted. The Kay family has now been in Malawi for three generations—with Alexander currently at the helm—and Satemwa Estate grows coffee and various other crops in addition to its large "breadwinning" CTC operation. The estate produces an average of 5.4 million pounds of tea each year. Malawi's first successful plantings came from seeds sent from the United Kingdom back in 1886. It remains AN IDENTITY BUILT unclear whether these first seeds of AROUND CTC Ceylonese origin (today's Sri Lanka) arrived from the Royal Botanical CTC is certainly Malawi's strength. Gardens in Edinburgh or from The nation exports nearly 100,000 London's Kew Gardens. Planted in pounds of CTC black tea annually, Malawi's Blantyre Mission, the seeds ranking it as Africa's second-largest sprouted enough healthy plants to tea producer after Kenya and accountlaunch the industry. Aside from some ing for around 4 percent of world abandoned experimental plantings in exports. Tea is now challenging tobacSouth Africa's Natal region, these were co—Malawi's primary export earnthe continent's earliest tea bushes, er—as international tobacco prices HIGH VOLUME: Malawi's Satemwa Tea Estate produces and they paved the way for Africa's an average of 5.4 million pounds of tea a year. decline. The United Kingdom has oldest ongoing tea industry. (About traditionally been Malawi's principal a year ago, the last two remaining specimens of these original export destination, but with the U.K. share shrinking and to avoid plants were uprooted to plant corn.) trade dependence, a concerted effort has been made in recent In those early years, tea was "test planted" all over the coun- years to diversify export markets. Today, much of Malawi's tea try, and the regions of Thyolo and Mulanje (both in southern is sold to Kenya for resale in the Mombasa auctions, while South Malawi) were found to be the most suitable. The timing was Africa, the United States and more recently Pakistan also buy perfect: By the end of the 19th century and into the early substantial quantities. 1900s, demand for tea from European markets was increasing With roughly 42,000 estate employees and more than 7,000 rapidly. Many established rubber and tobacco growers of the smallholders, an estimated 300,000 Malawians currently rely region began replanting fields with this profitable crop. By 1924, on the tea industry in one way or another for their livelihood. continued on page 44