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1daeV BSOd 0dO\QV =a` continued from page 28 Plan, a Colonial agricultural policy in which Kenyan farmers transitioned from subsistence farming to cash-crop production. (Roger Swynnerton was an official in Kenya's Department of Agriculture.) The plan created thousands of small-scale tea farm- ers, and the Kenyan government set up the first smallholder tea factory at the foothills of Mt. Kenya in Nyeri, at the center of the country. One of those small-scale farmers was Arthur Komo, W'Njuguna's grandfather; until the Swynnerton plan, W'Njuguna says, African natives like her grandfather were barred from grow- ing cash crops. "He had heard about tea and went to find out how he could better himself and make more money," W'Njuguna says. "So he got trained to grow tea and started growing it on his ances- tral land." On Nov. 7, 1957, the initial Nairobi Tea Auction took place, making Kenyan tea available on the international market for the first time. Walker, who began his tea career in early-1960s Kenya, says that while Kenya became famous for its CTC teas, the coun- try was actually produc- ing orthodox teas during its initial foray into tea production. The ortho- dox method, which is used for most specialty teas, employs either hand rolling or machines that simulate the hand-rolling process, producing leaves that are more intact than in the CTC process. However, Walker says the decision was made in the 1960s to switch to CTC. "With the advent of the tea bag coming into the United States and the market expand- ing here, they saw that it would be prudent to go into CTC," he says, "and that's what they did. But they became a victim of their own success I guess going forward another 30 years. And now the whole of East Africa basically is CTC." Kenya struggled for independence from colonial rule in the separate itself from the Kenyan government, seeking to have more say in its pay structure and also to expand its reach to compete with other tea-producing nations. S.M. W'Njuguna, Joy's father, helped form the farmers' rights organization WAFE (War Against Farmers Exploitation) that led the charge. In June 2000 the KTDA became a private company; it now manages 65 factories across the country and employs 562,000 small-scale tea farmers who are individual shareholders of the company. THE SPECIALTY QUANDARY Much has been made in recent years of the growth in the U.S. specialty tea industry—consumers are excited about its health- ful properties, urban teahouses are hip hotspots, and some tea professionals think the Millennial generation may cause tea to explode in the American beverage industry. But when surveying the different origins at play in the U.S. specialty scene, consum- ers again and again see China, India, Taiwan, Japan and Sri Lanka … but no Kenya. The nation's absence TEA IN TRANSIT: Kenya produces about 250,000 tons of tea annually, which accounts for 20 percent of the world's tea. from the U.S. specialty tea market may not be a permanent one. Royal Tea of Kenya, which is headquartered in New York City, is working on bringing a wider selec- tion of Kenyan teas to America. While the company offers CTC black teas—a move W'Njuguna says she made to fully represent the nation—it also sells orthodox Kenyan tea stretching beyond the familiar black variet- ies. Royal Tea of Kenya offers orthodox green tea, white tea and a Kenyan specialty called ensuing years, finally achieving it in December 1963. The follow- ing year, small-scale farmers formed the Kenya Tea Development Authority (KTDA). Controlled by new Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta (who would later become Kenya's first president), the group's goal was to build factories and infrastructure that could support the growth of small-scale tea holders. The KTDA was a success, and Kenya tea began to develop into the CTC-producing powerhouse it is today. Toward the end of the 20th century, the KTDA began working to ! TEA ALMANAC 2012 purple tea (see "The Color Purple" sidebar for more). Consultant Walker says that because this market is starting to exist from companies such as Royal Tea of Kenya, producers have worked to encourage different tea types to meet specialty demand. "Buyers in the specialty tea market are looking for an exotic origin, a story to tell and something a little bit different," he says. "So it was logi- cal for Kenya, if they were going to put their toe in the water here in this market, that they would also have to produce green tea." With different tea plants being grown in nurseries around the country in the early-2000s, Walker was involved in selecting the best clonal plantings suited to orthodox manufacture and