International Tea Day is an opportunity to celebrate the cultural heritage, health benefits and economic importance of tea, while working to make its production sustainable “from field to cup” ensuring its benefits for people, cultures and the environment continue for generations.

When is International Tea Day?

International Tea Day is marked annually on May 21st, in accordance with the United Nations' resolution.

Tea production and processing are a main source of livelihoods for millions of families. The celebration promotes the sustainable production, consumption, and trade of tea, and offers an opportunity for actors at global, regional and national levels to ensure that the tea sector continues to play a role in reducing extreme poverty, fighting hunger and safeguarding natural resources.

History of International Tea Day

The International Tea Day campaign was launched in 2005 by the trade unions, small tea growers and civil society organizations in Asia and Africa to address the issues of living wages for workers and fair prices for small tea producers.

Why Do We Mark International Tea Day?

The day dedicated to the tea trade aims to increase public awareness of how it affects the lives of farmers and workers. While tea enthusiasts worldwide also celebrate this occasion. The United Nations marks International Tea Day every year on May 21st to educate the public on global concerns, promoting sustainable tea manufacturing, business, and consumption. The goal of this day is to recognise the vulnerable situations faced by tea producers worldwide, focusing on climate change, technology, trends in production, and consumption in the tea industry, and addressing current living conditions and worker-related policies.

Key messages

• Tea production and processing represent a source of livelihoods for millions of families, including millions in the least developed countries.
• The tea sector is a multi-billion dollar industry that can support economies and contribute to sustainable food systems.
• Tea export earnings help to finance food import bills, supporting the economies of major tea-producing countries.
• The tea sector contributes to socio-economic development, representing a major source of employment and income for millions of poor families worldwide.
• Tea thrives in very specific agro-ecological conditions and environments, which are often impacted by climate change.
• Smallholder tea producers need our support to strengthen their business model and environment and overcome the challenges they face.
• In order to ensure benefits for both people and the environment, the tea value chain must be efficient and sustainable at all stages, from field to cup.

Ms.Nelius Wanjiru Kariuki is a career civil servant. She has worked in the Ministries of Commerce and Industry, Finance and Planning and National Development starting as an Economist and rising to the level of Principal Economist.  She has been a Director of Nelleon Development Company Limited.

An alumni of Alliance Girls High School as well as the University of Nairobi, from where she graduated with an M.A and a B.A in Economics.  She has served as a Board member in various girls’ high schools as well as The Murang’a Teachers College.  She has also served in various business and professional organizations.

She served on the Board of Kenya Re as a Director from 2003.  In 2007, she was appointed as the Chairman of the Board of Directors. She led the Corporation through its first IPO and is recorded as the first woman to ring the bell at the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

Under her Chairmanship, Kenya Re continued to experience an upward trend in its financial performance. In addition, Kenya Re’s business saw the Corporation open regional offices in Abidjan in 2010.  She was instrumental in steering Kenya Re to attain and maintain the ISO 9001:2008 standard as well as successful CSR Progamme - Niko Fiti- Abillity Beyond Disability.

Her social interests include golf, a sport in which she has served in various positions rising to become Chairman of the Veterinary Laboratory Sports Club.  She has also served in the Kenya Ladies Golf Union.

The East African Tea Trade Association is a voluntary organization bringing together Tea Producers, Buyers (Exporters), Brokers, Tea Packers and Warehouses, all working to promote the best interests of the Tea Trade in Africa. Currently, membership comprises over three hundred companies extending across the East and Central African borders. EATTA mandated to promote and facilitate the interests of all the stakeholders in the tea trade in Africa by creating an enabling business environment geared towards maintaining global standards and delivering tea products to the customers in the most profitable way.

Vision: To be the leading tea trade association globally.

Mission: To facilitate a world class trading platform for African teas and provide sustainable service to members.

EATTA e-mail disclaimer

The East African Tea Trade Association is a progressive and socially aware organization. We are dedicated to integrating good corporate citizenship into our business strategies, since CSR is integral to the long-tern sustainability of our business.Our efforts are restricted to the following identified significant areas of focus, namely:

1. Education
2. Environment
3. Worthy Initiatives.

1. ISO 22000: 2005 ( Food Safety Management System)

Overview

The ISO 22000 family of standards relate to food safety management systems and are designed to help organizations of any size and at any stage in the food chain to ensure they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders. The standards are published by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization and are available through National standards bodies.

This is a standard  that defines food safety requirements that apply to all organizations in the food production this includes tea . We as EATTA encourages tea producers and warehousemen to adopt this system as this one of the requirement of buyers. The FSMS ensure that food products are produced in good manufacturing practice that cannot affect the consumer and hence impacting on the market. 

ISO 22000 describes the requirements for operating an effective food safety management system integrating the use of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) techniques and defined prerequisites for the safe production of food.

The ISO 22000 model is a systematic approach to developing, planning, validating, establishing, implementing, monitoring, verifying and improving the food safety management system. Implementation is split down into several distinct stages including:

2. Quality management principles (QMS 9001;2008)

Introduction 

The East African Tea Trade Association adopted the application of this standard by its members who are proving various services across the tea value chain. The principles  applied here  are used by senior management as a framework to guide their  tea organizations towards improved transparency and  performance. The principles are derived from the collective experience and knowledge of the international experts who participate in ISO Technical Committee ISO/TC 176, Quality management and quality assurance, which is responsible for developing and maintaining the ISO 9000 standards. 

The ISO 9000 family of standards relate to quality management systems and are designed to help organizations ensure they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders. The standards are published by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization and are available through National standards bodies.

ISO 9000 deals with the fundamentals of quality management systems, including the eight management principles on which the family of standards is based. ISO 9001 deals with the requirements that organizations wishing to meet the standard have to meet.

ISO 9001 specifies the basic requirements for a quality management system (QMS) that an organization must fulfil to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide products (which include services) that enhance customer satisfaction and meet applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.

4. RAIN FOREST ALLIANCE

The Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal is found globally on products such as cocoa, coffee, flowers, fruit, tea and vegetables from Africa, Latin America, Asia and Hawaii. The certification standards apply to over 100 types of crops and livestock.

Rainforest Alliance certification addresses whole-farm sustainability, which means that once farmers meet the certification standards, they can sell all eligible crops as Rainforest Alliance Certified.

EATTA encourages producers to be RA certified to be able to attract specific markets that source for teas farmed in rainforest Alliance certified.

5. FAIR TRADE

East African Tea Trade accepted fair trade as one of its standards as a reflection of due diligence in its operations. This standard was actually incorporated in the Tea catalogue after the approval by the EATTA Board of Directors. Fair trade  is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries to make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to exporters as well as higher social and environmental standards. It focuses in particular on exports from developing countries to developed countries, most notably handicrafts, coffee, cocoa, sugar, tea, bananas, honey, cotton, wine, fresh fruit, chocolate,  and flowers. Fair trade is also associated with the trade justice movement, which advocates for fair trade public policies. There are several recognized fair trade certifiers, including Fairtrade International (formerly called FLO/Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International), IMO and Eco-Social

In 2008, products certified with Fairtrade International's Fairtrade certification amounted to approximately US$4.98 billion (€3.4B) worldwide, a 22% year-to-year increase. This represents a tiny fraction of world trade in physical merchandise, Fairtrade International claims that some fair trade products account for 20-50% of all sales in their product categories in individual countries, and in June 2008, claimed that over 7.5 million producers and their families were benefiting from fair trade funded infrastructure, technical assistance and community development projects. Fairtrade branding has extended beyond food and fibre, a development that has been particularly vibrant in the UK where there are 500 Fairtrade Towns, 118 Fairtrade universities, over 6000 Fairtrade churches, and over 4000 UK schools registered in the Fairtrade Schools Scheme. 

5. Other Standards  for tea Industry EATTA Members to facilitate includes the following:

• British Retail Consortium Standards  (BRC)
• International Food Safety Standards   (IFS)
• Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points( HACCP)
• Environmental Management Standards ( EMS:9001:2004)
• Halal