Land of a thousand Hills- covered in golden tea!

As you may well know from our previous posts- Rwanda holds a special place to us at Taylors as it forms an important part of our Yorkshire Gold Blend, producing tea with unique character and truly golden brightness. We have been buying Rwandan teas for many years and I visited Rwanda as part of my training trip to see first-hand the tea and the people who grow it.

The first thing that strikes you when entering Rwanda after leaving the airport in Kigali, the capital, is the cleanliness. The government here actually banned plastic bags a number of years ago and my, what a difference it makes. Clean streets with virtually no litter line well built roads with neat pedestrian walkways. Cosmopolitan buildings sit alongside neat villages, the most modest of which are built from clay bricks and tiled roofs, as opposed to tin. All these sites are very remarkable when you consider the trauma this country endured 16 years ago during the conflict that took place here.

And then there’s the tea. I had the privilege of visiting three factories producing some of the best tea in the country- and by that fact, some of the best tea in the world. Rwanda is known as the land of a thousand hills and that it is- specacular rolling hills with steep escaprments that lie often above the clouds.

I visited estates that are part of a project part funded by DFID and ourselves to support 10,000 Rwandan farmers in quality improvement and sustainabilty in partnership with Rainforest Alliance. The areas where the tea estates lie are covered in lush green tea bushes. The volcanic soils and high altitude make for unique growing conditions that set Rwandan tea apart. When the sun shines the tea bushes shimmer a golden glow that illuminates the landscape and translates into a rich golden liquor in the cup- just what we're looking for for Yorkshire Gold.

Illuminous yellowy green leaf, fermenting, and the stunning Lake Kivu.