“Mt. Kenya Tea” is a special tea manufactured from tea leaves plucked by 5,500 small-scale tea farmers in Githongo area, Meru, Kenya. The factory is owned by all the farmers and managed by KTDA. The said “Mt. Kenya Tea” is imported to Japan by Kenya-Japan Trade On Friendship Co. Ltd without any intermediation activities of the middlemen. Thus, our consumers have always enjoyed fresh cups of “Mt. Kenya Tea” at a fair price, since it is a direct import from the factory to Japan. Compared to other countries’ teas, our tea has unique taste and its body gets along with milk. Our tea has coppery bright character, a special flavor and cup color. 

Githongo Tea Factory is located in Meru Central District of Eastern Province, 10kms off the busy Embu - Meru Highway and west of Meru Town. The Githongo tea catchment area is ranging between 1,500m and 2,500m above sea level, and borders the natural Mount Kenya Forest. This has an effect of making the ambient temperatures very cool and conducive for tea growing. Its Red Soil of Mt. Kenya contributes good taste to our tea as the catchment area has slightly acidic volcanic soils. It also enhances the flavor aspect of tea quality due to the slow shoot growth. Most of the Githongo catchment area is gentle with undulating plains.

Most of the Githongo tea growers are local community called Meru who live at the slopes of the northeastern side of Mt. Kenya, each owning an average size of 0.5 acre (0.20ha). Agricultural activity is their main source of income. The tea farmers work in their tea field from the morning to the evening and from Monday through to Saturday, plucking two leaves and a bud for quality purposes and putting the fresh plucked tea leaves into a basket on their backs. Once or twice a day, these tea farmers take the plucked green leaves by walking to a nearby buying center to be weighed by the Factory tea leaf clerks. The green tea leaves delivered to the buying center by the farmers becomes his / her monthly income according to the weight. A leaf carrier from the factory collects those tea leaves to the factory after having collected green leaves from several buying centers of the Githongo catchment area.