KTDA factories scoop top tea quality awards

By Standard Reporter

Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) managed factories scooped all the top awards in the Commercial Manufacture category of this year’s Tea Industry Quality Competition organised by the Tea Board of Kenya recently.

The awards the factories won included the Best Set, the Stansand (Africa) Cup, and the Lipton Challenge Cup, which also recognise the highest priced Kenyan made teas sold at the Mombasa Auction in the period July last year to June this year.

Those that won the trophies for first position included Kambaa Tea Factory, Githambo Tea Factory and Mungania Tea Factory.

Every year, the Tea Board of Kenya organises the competition for tea samples from the different producers in the country, in the spirit of enhancing competition and overall standard of quality of Kenyan tea.

Apart from the Commercial Class, the competition also covers the Special Manufacture category, the Specialty Tea category and the Tea Packers category.

"The Commercial Manufacture category reflects the actual quality of tea that goes to the market and therefore the dominance of KTDA factories in this category demonstrates that KTDA is the undisputed leader of high quality tea making," said Vincent Mwingirwa, KTDA’s Quality Assurance and New Products Development manager.

This year, 540 tea samples were entered in the competition, out to which 249 were commercial samples, while 276 were in the special manufacture category, and 15 were specialty teas.

KTDA factories also came top in two classes of the Specialty Teas category — the black orthodox and white tea manufacture — and took second position in the Green Tea class.

Judging is done through blind tasting, under strict supervision of Tea Board of Kenya.

The judges are nominated by the East Africa Tea Trade Association.