#2 Africa the land of CTC and a Punch in the Face
A few years ago now, I was punched in the face by a tea plucker on a dirt road in ….well… a large tea growing region in East Africa.
I had a video camera and apparently that’s all it took, they thought I was making money from their images, I was actually making a charity film with a charity; Malawi Music Fund One moment I was filming a graceful woman walking calmly with her basket, and the next I was hit in the face whilst my camera was almost yanked away from me - I wrenched the camera to my chest and retreated quickly to the car, fast closing the window in a cowardly gesture against the rising clamour of shouts and the angry thumping of fists on the window. Staring blankly at the amused driver, feeling a bit shocked and confused, I resolved to find out about the plantation there. My film was nothing to do with tea nor farming, but I interviewed several farmers on that trip and some unhappy truths were revealed.
I won’t go into this deeply but was heart breaking to see the tea pluckers so angry and I really can’t say that if I were in those conditions I wouldn’t also feel like hitting a stranger. So I appreciate having seen first hand the anger these tea pluckers must feel, isolated from family, exposed to the elements, the pesticides, physically exhausted, with bad sanitation, crowded living quarters, mostly hungry and frequently suffering back pain from the job. I feel like I witnessed an important human truth that day, I saw the woman tea pluckers anger and felt a heavy guilt, I am quite sure I deserved it, for all those years as a student when I forgot about loose teas tea and bought tea bags.
So much of the worlds tea bag tea is manufactured with so little respect to the people that grow and make it. I can never buy cheap teabag teas again.
Perhaps if people in the UK knew about how much work goes into growing and making tea we wouldn’t expect to pay so little for it? Tea pluckers in Africa and other CTC tea bag producer countries are our concern, as we drink so much of it. I do think that unsatisfactory tea worker conditions in these countries are perpetuated partly due to the disconnect we have to the production of our nations favourite drink.
At Glen Caladh Farm we are working on a single estate Scottish tea that celebrates the flavours naturally present in the leaf. At the same time we will promote an understanding and a connection to the tea we drink.