Tea has always been a part of my childhood, but my passion to do this as a business was born out of a completely different career path—corporate finance. At the time I was working at Lehman Brothers in New York, and the fast-paced lifestyle of everyone around me drove me to the serenity of tearooms, tucked away in the quiet corners of an otherwise relentlessly bustling city. I met some amazing tea connoisseurs, and so many of them consumed African teas, but they had lost their identity in the way tea bag blends or (CTC) teas do, where the character of the tea is ground down and the nuances of the actual tea leaf completely disappear.

From my childhood in Kenya, I couldn’t reconcile the leaf I knew with the tea dust so popular around the world and resolved to preserve the integrity of the African Camellia Assamica leaf along with the history behind our blends. From my time studying in Japan, I learned the intricacies of the blending process and furthered that knowledge training as a Tea Sommelier at the UK Tea Academy. After attending her course at the Cambridge Tea Academy, my mentor and professor Joyce Maina urged me to join ESTA and I still refer to those webinars today. It’s been a joy to continue to learn from a diverse, passionate group of people that love and appreciate tea as much as I do.

Now Muthaiga Tea Company is three years old and fourteen blends in, and our original vision remains the same. To preserve the entire value chain of tea in Africa through sustainable and responsible sourcing, and to share the unique histories, cultures, and stories behind our teas with the world. As people become more health conscious, all the natural remedies passed down through families and shared amongst indigenous communities are becoming more popular, and we’re committed to ensuring that the people behind our teas are as appreciated and acknowledged for their craft as the teas themselves.

As we’ve grown, we’ve branched out into areas I never anticipated, like our MTC Alchemy tea experiences where we explore tea in all of its many forms, pairing teas with tea infused foods. Seeing people who wouldn’t necessarily even call themselves “tea people” take the time to parse out the different flavours and show so much interest and reverence in the human stories that inspire our blends has forged a sense of togetherness and connection that was the initial inspiration behind MTC.

Take a journey into the African stories that inspire our blends by heading to our website and Instagram:

www.muthaigatea.com

@muthaigatea

Tehmeena Manji, Muthaiga Tea Company, Nairobi, Kenya