Today, Monday, September 20, I spent the day with Ray Menard and his wife Lonnie touring a tea producing cooperative. This was near the town of Mkonge which is south of Iringa past Mafinga. This area is at the same altitude as Boma, around 6,500 feet above sea level. The countryside is made up of gently rolling hills covered in tea plants. The tea fields were a brilliant green. It was absolutely beautiful. Tea grows on bushes which seem to be only 12 - 18 inches tall. These remind me of bonzai trees. They are constantly being trimmed to keep them at this helight.
We saw people hunched over with large baskets on their backs plucking tea leaves. They work a 12 hour day and are paid $2.65 per day if they pluck 200 pounds of leaves. Seems like a really good way to have a back ache at the end of the day. Migrant workers are used by many of the large corporate plantations. We were meeting with a cooperative made up of over 500 small farmers.
Once the tea is plucked it must be taken to the processor within a couple of hours. Otherwise, it starts to spoil. At the processing plant it goes through a drying process and is chopped into fine pieces. It is then sorted and graded and fermented before it is packaged for sale.. TZ tea is supposed to be among the best teas in the world. We'll see. I bought some to bring home.
Tomorrow our safari begins. Two days of animal viewing should be a blast.
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