Rwanda Tea Authority

Tea growing was introduced in Rwanda as an industrial crop and purely for export purposes to generate foreign income as early as 1960. Black tea manufacturing followed in 1965 at Mulindi tea factory in the Northern Province. Since then the tea sector has become the most important source export earning after the coffee market plunged in recent years. Tea is now number one export earner ; contributing up to 34% of the total national exports.

Today, the tea sector in Rwanda consists of six state owned production units, i.e Gisovu, Kitabi, Mata, Mulindi, Shagasha, Gisakura and four private owned production units, i.e Cyohoha (SORWATHE), Pfunda (Pfunda Tea Company),Nyabihu and Rubaya ( Rwanda Mountain tea). Nshili-Kivu is another private owned production unity with a factory still under construction.

The current tea sector consists of 10 tea factories, 8 government owned plantations known as Blocs Industries (BI), 3 tea cooperatives known as Coopthés and 11 tea small holders associations known as Thé Village is spread in the country as indicated in the table below, Structure and distribution of tea production units.

The total planted area is 12,862 hectares. The factories installed capacity is 15,500 tones of made tea per annum. The tea sector provides employment to 52,838 people, tea farmers and workers together.