Sakare Specialty Tea Company
Giving the power back to tea farmers in Tanzania!
Sakare Specialty Tea Company (SSTC) is the first smallholder-farmer-owned specialty tea factory in Tanzania, established by Kazi Yetu in 2023!
The factory is currently producing high quality whole leaf grade (FP – Flowery Pekoe) green and black tea, perfect for high-quality loose leaf single origin green and black teas and green and black tea blends.
How it all began
This is the story of a tea cooperative and a company that shook hands over a cup of tea to transform the lives of tea farmers.
Last year we wrote a blog about our green tea supply chain challenges in Tanzania and how we had to start sourcing green tea from Rwanda. Since this day our quest for sourcing high-quality green tea in Tanzania has not wavered. In fact, our efforts were multiplying. In early 2022 Kazi Yetu started a tea value chain development project together with CARE International (financed by Bloomberg Philanthropies). Through this project we have engaged the Tanzania Smallholder Tea Development Agency, the Tea Board of Tanzania and high-potential tea farmer cooperatives to improve productivity, invest in green tea and orthodox tea production, and redistribute the economic gain down to the cooperative and farmer levels, especially targeting women. One of the game changing achievements of this work has been the establishment of SSTC!
As Minister of Agriculture, Hussein Bashe said:
“[The 10-year tea industry strategy] aims at increasing production… through the use of modern technology in the whole production chain and strengthening the market system.”
Why is SSTC so special?
As you may know, for the production of tea, fresh tea leaves have to be processed within hours of harvest. The job of the majority of the smallholder tea farmers in Tanzania is to grow, pluck and supply fresh tea leaves, which are then transported to large corporate-owned tea factories to be processed. Before we established this factory, the tea farmers were making $0.15/kg for green leaf (raw materials). After the establishment, the farmer-owned factory is generating revenue of $4/kg of processed tea. All profits generated by the company are shared with the 1,500 farmer members. Cooperatives struggle to get involved t in tea processing capacity due to lack of financial resources, lack of technical knowledge, and lack of market access. This is where Kazi Yetu and SSTC come in – we are demonstrating to tea farmers and the tea sector in Tanzania how things can be done differently and providing inspiration for a different future.
What’s been done so far?
Throughout 2023 a small scale tea processing factory was set up. This included the renovation of an unused warehouse in a rural village in the Usambara Mountains into an organic-compliant factory and the installation of the necessary machinery required to produce high quality orthodox green tea (pan-fried) and black tea of whole leaf (FOP) tea. As well as the recruitment and training of a dedicated team of tea pluckers, factory workers and administrative staff.
We brought in an artisanal tea trainer from Sri Lanka to ensure the training of the future staff members and to foster collaboration between Sakare´s farmers and tea processors.
This business will have access to the market through Kazi Yetu Ltd, who is providing intensive support and training to ensure a quality product is produced.
Social impact: profit-sharing amongst farmers
The fact that SSTC is cooperative-owned means that cooperative members – the smallholder farmers – are sharing the profits of specialty tea sales by SSTC! By being involved in specialty tea production the cooperative also has the potential to significantly increase their income because the selling price for processed orthodox tea is more than 26 times higher than for unprocessed tea leaves.
SSTC is creating local employment from plucking to production. And we are prioritizing the building of skills and creation of opportunities for women and youth – two groups that are neglected, marginalized and under-represented in the tea sector.
Furthermore, SSTC serves as a training and exposure hub for other tea cooperatives in Tanzania, inspiring them to invest in affordable machinery for tea processing and increasing income for tea farmers through value addition and market opportunities.
Environmental impact
The fields and factory are situated in the Usambara mountains – the Eastern Arc area of mainland Tanzania – at an altitude of 1,000m above sea level. The area is home to one of the last indigenous rainforests in Africa – a rich and unique habitat in terms of biodiversity that needs to be protected and nurtured. As such, SSTC puts environmental sustainability at the heart of what it does.
At the farm level, SSTC is promoting and training smallholder farmers on organic and regenerative agriculture to minimize the use of harmful chemicals. We are also seeking to revive the tea growing sector in this area at a time when many farmers are looking for alternative livelihoods, which often includes the clearing of indigenous rainforest for agriculture and firewood purposes. At the factory level we are working to reduce our environmental footprint by using biomass briquettes in our tea dryer, as an eco-friendly alternative to wood, and developing plans for the future installation of solar power, to reduce our electricity consumption. Together these actions will reduce the company’s carbon footprint and impact on the surrounding environment, which are critical given that the area is already disproportionately experiencing the negative effects of climate change and high rates of deforestation.
All in all, the Sakare Specialty Tea Cooperative shows how fair trade can be taken a step further. Smallholder farmers not only do the agricultural production, but also take over processing leading to the redistribution of economic gain down to the cooperative and farmer levels!
This initiative is financed by Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with CARE International, as well as Transform Trade.
For business inquiries and customers including tea blending companies, specialty tea shops, and tea brands, email us on
hello@kazi-yetu.com.
