A sweeter future for African tea

Cinnamon spiced black tea + new work to repair a persistent colonial legacy.

Sweet like cinnamon

The tea: Cinnamon spice black tea, sold by Kazi Yetu. $14 for 20 teabags.

Spiced teas aren’t a regular part of my drinking diet, but I enjoy making them now and again as a sweet and aromatic break from my usual choices. People make good drinks with tea and spices all over the world, and I’d be a fool to ignore them out of some misplaced sense of purity.

The problem with most blended teas is that they’re usually made with low quality spices to cover up the flavor of nondescript leaves. Some spices take longer to fully infuse in water than tea leaves do, so unless you’re simmering the blend on the stove, the aromatics that smell so nice in the dry leaf can taste underpowered in the cup. That’s not the case with this fragrant East African blend. By weight it’s roughly half orthodox black tea, half fine cinnamon shavings and cardamom seeds. There’s a natural spicy sweetness that lingers on my tongue, and the cardamom contributes high aromas that complement the bass note of black tea. All killer, no filler.

The source: I was introduced to Kazi Yetu (“our work” in Swahili) by my friends Ethan and Ori, who as the founders of Burlap & Barrel set a high bar for good spices. The Tanzania based company is a social enterprise aimed at improving the East African tea industry—one of the world’s largest tea regions, but one that’s locked into race-to-the-bottom commodity production because of its colonial past and present. Kazi Yetu began in 2018 by sourcing orthodox tea from the few gardens in the region that make it. Last year, they opened the Sakare Tea Factory to produce their own green and black tea, which they blend with herbs and spices from more than a dozen small farms at their packing facility in Dar es Salaam. Sakare is Tanzania’s first orthodox factory owned entirely by a coop of smallholder farmers who provide fresh assamica leaf. By producing finished tea themselves, farmers can earn far more for their crops than they could by selling green leaf to other factories at whatever price the commodity market sets. This kind of value added agriculture is a crucial step, not only in raising the quality of African tea, but in providing better livelihoods for workers and their families.

To brew: Although Kazi Yetu ships looseleaf tea to Europe, their US offerings are limited to teabags for now. I brew mine with boiling water for 3 minutes; you can expect one nice steep. If you want to add sugar or milk, wait until the tea is finished steeping. I love unrefined sugars like date, palm, or panela for additional depth. Like most specialty brands these days, Kazi Yetu’s teabags are made of a cornstarch derived polymer called polylactic acid. This material won’t break down in landfills but can be composted by industrial operations with added heat. You can find a local composter in this national directory from the US Composting Council.

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A rehabilitated tea field in Tanzania. This and the following photos are courtesy of Kazi Yetu.

Building a better African tea business

Tea came to East Africa in the wake of British colonization. Planters followed the business models that were successfully carried out in India with conscripted labor on stolen land, and this close to the Equator, growers could produce tea year-round—a boon for the booming Western tea market. According to data from the International Tea Committee, Africa provides 12% of the world’s tea, principally in Kenya but also Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and several over countries.