Tea is a wonderful part of my life. I get up in the morning excited to brew my first cup. I scramble through my half-asleep brain to decide what I’ll drink today. The day hasn’t truly started until I pick the proper water temperature on my water kettle. Just writing about it, I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s cup!
But beneath that pleasure is a profound respect for the tea and where it came from. There is a deep sorrow and anger at the conditions tea workers have to endure on many farms around the world. There is also a shameful knowledge of how capitalism and white supremacy have shaped the industry, both abroad and here in the United States.
This is the second of two articles discussing the colonization of tea. The first article focuses on the history of colonization, and this article will address how colonization continues to impact the tea industry. I spoke with two amazing tea company owners, Jamila Wright of Brooklyn Tea and Ranmu (Maggie) Xue of Us Two Tea. They gave their insights and shared their experiences as women of Color in the tea industry.
Throughout its colonial history, and still today, working conditions on many tea farms were and are inhumane.
According to the Solidarity Center, “an estimated 13 million people in 48 countries work on tea plantations around the world, mostly women who are paid low wages and have few or no health and safety protections. Tea plantation workers are often forced to rely on their employers for food, housing and education, adding to their vulnerability.”
The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre spoke to Rebecca Nyakondo, a Kenyan tea worker, whose back was so damaged from picking tea, the pain stopped her picking up her youngest child. For 17 years, she said, she was paid as little as $1.90 per day to pick for 12 hours with a basket carrying up to 44 lb strapped to her back.
It is also leading to environmental issues, from the use of pesticides to deforestation. How are these things tied to colonialism? We can only imagine what tea production would look like today if the British had not capitalized on tea’s popularity using espionage, sabotage, theft, addiction, inhumane labor practices, and so on.
A tea farm at dusk
Know Who Grows Your Tea
Much of this dehumanization and carelessness for the earth can be traced back to the wealth generated by tea being kept from those who produce it. Tea workers in Assam, India made about $1.50 a day in 2015, and in 2018, tea workers in Kenya made about $3.50 a day. That’s around $850 a year, compared to the estimated cost of living in Kenya, which is around $5,913 a year for a single person – and this estimate doesn’t include rent. In contrast, Lipton had a brand value of over $10 billion in 2022.
“A lot of people don’t know that most of the tea comes from places with Black and Brown folks, right? So, you have that to teach people and then to say, ‘okay, now, look at the most wealth generating tea companies out there.’ And they’re typically not Brown and Black folks, right? They’re typically white males, right? … So, it’s just this longstanding history of the folks who are doing the day in, day out labor not having any access to the generational wealth that’s accumulated around tea.”
Jamila Wright, Co-owner of Brooklyn Tea
A tea tasting in Malawi
White Supremacy in Tea
The issues faced by farmworkers and the ecosystems around farms is a result of operating within a white supremacist capitalist system. White supremacy keeps white people at the top of these systems – think Bigelow CEO Cindi Bigelow, Twinings USA CEO Gavin Vandeligt, CVC Capital Partners (owners of Lipton brands) CEO Rob Lucas, and many smaller tea brands. Capitalism keeps consumers in the dark about company affairs, values and practices, making it hard for tea drinkers to decide what companies to support.
“I was searching, and I found out at that time – it was 2019 – there are not a lot of Asian owned brands… So, I started thinking, why there’s no Asian-owned tea brand.”
Ranmu (Maggie) Xue, Founder of Us Two Tea
Housing for tea workers
A Concentration of Wealth
This erasure of where tea comes from leads to consumers not being able to make informed choices. Moreover, it provides us with an inaccurate idea of what tea is and who produces it.
“A lot of times, all this tea is being white labeled – no pun intended – and repackage, and there is no talk of the history, where it comes from, right? And so you can get someone who bags a tea that was made in Kenya or China, but they repackage it. They sell it in your local Target, Walmart, and there’s no connection to the history.”
Jamila Wright, Co-owner of Brooklyn Tea
This repackaging and rebranding of tea away from its origins and towards a whitewashed product can also create challenges for folks who identify as a member of a tea-growing culture.
“I can tell the difference between Chinese-American kids and Korean-American kids. There’s a lack of cultural confidence because people think the product related to China is shitty quality, and there’s a bad image when Trump was president. So, you can really tell they’re not proud to be Asian or Chinese during that time. So it really hurts me.”
Ranmu (Maggie) Xue, Founder of Us Two Tea
An Example of Tea Responsibility
In 2020, Yorkshire Tea told critics of the Black Lives Matter movement on Twitter to not buy their tea. The move was met with a deluge of comments, mainly from white people, challenging the brand’s stance on racism. Obviously, many of these tea drinkers have forgotten where their tea is sourced from. Indeed, much of the black tea we sip in the U.S. and the U.K. comes from former colonial tea plantations in India and several African countries, including Rwanda and Kenya. This includes the tea used in Yorkshire Tea products, and the alternatives people threatened to switch to after Yorkshire’s Twitter comment.
Please don't buy our tea again.
We're taking some time to educate ourselves and plan proper action before we post. We stand against racism. #BlackLivesMatter
There was also a reply in the Twitter thread suggesting Yorkshire Tea should change its name to Kenya Tea. This is an important point to make. The U.K. and the U.S. grow almost no tea on their own land. It cannot be forgotten that Black and Brown people have been the workforce behind the classic black teabag for centuries. It also cannot be forgotten that tea has its origins in China. Removing Chinese, Japanese and Korean culture from tea is a form of violence towards Asian people. This is not a point of politics, it is a demand for ethics, anti-racism, human rights, dignity, compassion and understanding.
Well done for shaming the racist, but now that you have used the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag may I suggest a rebrand to give credit where credit’s due. #KenyaTea perhaps?? As #Yorkshire is to tea what Elvis is to rock and roll.
Many white westerners – myself included – have taken immense pleasure in the celebration of tea. We’ve studied, sipped, tested, and tasted all types of tea. Some have led with cultural appreciation, some with cultural appropriation. For those of us whose culture is not one steeped in tea – it’s cultivation, it’s production, it’s importance – and for those of us whose ancestors were not slaves on farms reaping crops that made many others rich, we have to remember that tea is a sacred gift that we enjoy only because of centuries of colonization, warfare, torture, indentured servitude, and slavery.
When I first moved to New York, I started working for a (then) young company called Dona Chai. This is where I discovered my love and respect for super-high-quality teas. Now, I'm living in Ann Arbor with my spouse, where I test, write about, and take pictures of tea.I’ve always found peace and joy in making and drinking tea. Recently, I was writing down how different teas tasted and what notes or properties I noticed. After a while, I decided to post those notes along with photos I took. And now we’re here!
