One of the excursions we wanted to do from the beginning was visit a tea plantation, but it didn’t look like the timing was going to work for us, so we didn’t plan for it. However, Obed, the leader of the dance troupe from yesterday also happened to be a tea tour guide. What?!? Abdoul talked with him and explained our situation and Obed agreed to take us on a private tour. Even though it was a Sunday and the factory and plantation are basically closed.

Obed turned out to be a tea aficionado. There wasn’t anything he didn’t know about tea. And he was happy to share all of his information with us. It was fascinating, but I think mostly because Obed was fascinating.

We walked through the extremely dense tea bushes. It doesn’t look like you could get through, but somehow, you just push your way through them. We ran into two ladies picking tea leaves and they agreed to take us on as apprentices for a little while. There is an art to picking leaves and I can’t say that we learned it very well. These two ladies were amazing, they had fistfuls of leaves before I had even picked four or five. They expertly tossed the leaves into the basket on their backs and I managed to toss my leaves right back into the field. That made them laugh out loud.

After about 20 minutes of completely slowing down their progress, and so their earning potential for the day, we left them with about $10 CAD and they were so happy. We then learned that they normally get paid between $5.60 and $7.00/day. Wow. That is a lot of work, out in the field, rain or shine, for 8 – 10 hours a day. As they get paid by weight of leaves picked, they do prefer to work in the rain because their yield will weigh more.

What did we learn about tea? Well, here are some highlights:

1. Tea came to Rwanda via a German traveler/botanist/investor (?) in 1957. He couldn’t afford to start the whole plantation from scratch so suggested a cooperative with the locals that is still in place today. “If I fail, we all fail. If I succeed, we all succeed.”
2. A tea plant doesn’t die, it just keeps producing.
3. Every few years, the tree gets chopped down but it is ready for harvest again a mere three months later. If left unchecked, they’d grow to 8 meters tall. That makes it very difficult to harvest the leaves at the top. LOL.
4. Only the new leaves that have sprouted within 7 days will get harvested, the rest are no longer good.
5. You pick only the top three leaves of the branch and each of those leaves has a distinct destination.
6. 4 kg of leaves produces 1 kg of tea.
7. Tea plants have no insect or pest problems – they are self-defending and because of this are a very safe investment.
8. Tea plants are also drought resistant – their roots grow 4 meters into the ground.
9. Tea plants have to grow between 1000-2000m ASL. The higher the better.
10. If some leaves older than those 7 days accidentally get picked, they are sorted out at the factory and will be used for the ‘lesser’ tea bags.

You may now think you don’t need to go on a Tea Plantation tour because you have just learned so much about it. Don’t let this fool you. There is so much we have forgotten and would do this tour again in a heartbeat. It was an amazing experience.