Markets & Finance

EATTA planning new speciality tea Mombasa auction

mudibo

Mr Edward Mudibo, East Africa Tea Trade Association managing director. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU

The East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA) is considering holding a mini-auction for speciality tea to encourage farmers grow the tea variety.

Managing director Edward Mudibo said EATTA – which manages one of the largest weekly tea auctions for black tea in the world – intends to grow volumes and diversify exports.

“The volumes are small but we must start somewhere. If buyers are assured of the tea selling at the auction, this will allow them to get into contractual agreements with consumers. Farmers will in turn increase volumes,” Mr Mudibo said.

This comes as Mombasa-based Gold Crown plans single origin speciality tea—that is identified with a particular factory—exports to the up-market Harrods Department Store in London.

Peter Kimanga, a director at Gold Crown Foods which markets Kericho Gold brand, says the company is at an advanced stage of identifying a product line for export to the UK retailer.

“A team from Harrods recently visited our plant to see how we package our tea and they were very impressed. We are making progress in identifying the product from Kangaita factory in Kirinyaga that we will package for the store,” he said.

If the deal sails through, the package will have a label identifying it with Kenya inscribed on it, a huge milestone in efforts to market Kenyan tea, he said.

Out of about 450 million kilos of tea produced in Kenya annually, only 3 million kgs is speciality tea. Some buyers of Kenya tea use it for blending other inferior quality tea.