JusTea

It all started in 2012 when Grayson, Paul and Ian Bain, spent a week with Davison and Grace on their one-acre “shamba”.  Davison and the farmers in his community all told them the same story, “Being a small-scale tea farmer in Kenya is not sustainable. We do not earn a decent income from plucking our green leaf and dropping it off for buyers of the factory.”  

Jason, Paul and Ian learned that after all the deductions and bonus payments, these small-scale farmers only earn about $2 per day for their work in tea. That works out to 20-30 cents per 10-hour day, translating to a lack of basic family needs – food, water, sanitation and education.

Since then, JusTea has established Kenya’s first-ever, small-scale farmer-owned, Artisanal Tea Factory! They are providing fair and sustainable wages for tea farming families. So far they have:

• Created sustainable employment for youth and women in rural Kenya! They have opened the country’s first-ever, small-scale farmer-owned, Artisanal Tea Factory. 
• Partnered with a Women’s Herbal Tea Co-op in Eastern Kenya.  JusTea is the first North American distributor for this co-op’s Organic herbs.  Over 80% of the employees are women and they support hundreds of small-scale herbal tea farmers in their community.  
• Employed over 50 different woodworking families through the sales of their hand-carved Kenyan teaspoons. They have bought over 100,000 spoons and every purchase directly employs these carving families.
• Learned an incredible amount about relationship business from their partners in Kenya
• Travelled over 10 times from Canada to Kenya
• Funded 3 trips for Buddha (a great friend and tea consultant from Darjeeling) to train farmers in crafting artisanal teas
• Received the first Cottage-Industry Tea Processing license from the Tea Board of Kenya

Learn more about JusTea by visiting their website.