From Bush to Cup: The Tea Supply Chain Explained

Stage one: the field

Tea begins as two leaves and a bud, plucked by hand or machine every week or two in the growing season. Speed matters: green leaf starts to deteriorate within hours, so factories sit inside the growing regions, often surrounded by the smallholder farms that feed them.

In Kenya and Burundi, this stage is dominated by smallholders; in Sri Lanka and South India, by a mix of estates and bought-leaf factories.

Stage two: the factory

In the factory, leaf is withered, rolled or CTC-cut, oxidised, fired and sorted into grades — all within about 24 hours of plucking. The factory is where quality is made or lost, and where the tea acquires the identity — garden, grade, invoice — it will carry through the trade.

Stage three: the market

Made tea reaches the market through brokers and auctions — Mombasa, Colombo, the Indian centres — or through direct private sales. Brokers taste, value and catalogue; buyers bid; the price is discovered. This is the stage where the FAO's market data and the weekly auction reports are generated.

Trading houses like ours operate here: buying at origin, financing the flow, consolidating lots and moving the tea across borders.

Stage four: the cup

Blenders and packers turn bulk tea into branded products, retailers put it on shelves, and the final buyer brews it. By then the tea has typically crossed at least two borders and changed hands four or five times — yet a well-run chain preserves its garden character all the way.

That preservation — of quality, identity and value — is what the whole supply chain exists to do.