Ernestea - Nairobi, Kenya

Ernestea’s story began over 60 years ago. Every school holiday, Ernest Lang’at and his wife, Ludiah, took their nine daughters to their Kaptabeswet village farm in Kericho County, Kenya. For a chance to make a shilling or two, the girls purposefully learned how to plant tea seedlings: perpendicular to the slope, one meter apart. This practice evolved into an annual tradition as, year by year, the farm grew from 48,000 bushes on 12 acres in 1961 to over 80-acres rolling tea gardens today. Ernest, Ludiah and their daughters collected their yield with leaves from neighboring tea gardens to deliver to several factories for processing.

Decades later, Ambassador Ernest, along with his nine daughters and their own families, saw an opportunity to go beyond merely delivering raw leaves to  

Show more

factories for mass production to engaging discerning tea drinkers with an authentic tasting product with greater health benefits. The process of producing orthodox and specialty teas involves gently rolling, instead of cutting and crushing, the leaf. The entire production process is carefully monitored to ensure desired taste, appearance, aroma and flavor of the leaves emerge and are preserved.

In 2017, Ernestea Limited was licensed by the Tea Board of Kenya as a Cottage Tea Factory to begin the journey of processing its very own tea leaves and those of neighboring gardens.