Whole-leaf Kenyan black tea in a tin with a viewing window and the farmer's picture on the front, with a hand-carved Kenyan olive wood spoon attached. Up to 80 cups of loose leaf. Strong and malty, with cocoa bean and dried fruit.
Why whole-leaf Kenyan tea is unusual
Kenya is the largest exporter of black tea in the world, and almost none of it looks like this.
The overwhelming majority is made by the CTC method — crush, tear, curl — in which toothed rollers shred the leaf into hard granules. CTC brews fast, dark and strong, which is what a commodity teabag needs, and it fills nearly every teabag in Europe. It is also blunt: everything comes out in ninety seconds and there is nothing behind it.
This is orthodox whole leaf, rolled rather than shredded — a small fraction of Kenya's output. It releases flavour more slowly, holds far more aromatic complexity, and can be brewed twice.
The olive wood spoon
Hand-carved in Kenya, and a genuine part of the product rather than a trinket — carving supports a different group of people from tea farming.
Olive wood is dense, close-grained and naturally oily, which is why it resists staining and odour better than most woods and why it has been used for kitchen utensils for thousands of years.
Never put it in a dishwasher. The heat and alkaline detergent dry the wood, raise the grain and eventually crack it.
What malty means
The word is used loosely and here it is accurate. Withering and oxidation drive Maillard reactions — the same chemistry that browns bread crust and roasts coffee — producing the deep, biscuity, faintly cereal note tea people call malty. It is the same reason a strong Assam smells of malt loaf.
A claim you will not find here
This tea is commonly sold as "free of chemicals and pesticides". It does not appear here.
"Free of chemicals" is not meaningful — tea is made of chemicals, as is water. And organic certification does not mean no pesticides were used: it means only substances approved for organic production may be used, and several of those are pesticides. Organic is a genuinely better-regulated system and worth choosing. It is not an absence of agriculture.
A note on the listing
This product is listed under the vendor "JusTea DE (Galeno GmbH)", which is the German distributor, while other JusTea products in this shop are listed under "JusTea". Same brand, same Kenyan farmers, two vendor names.
Biohême
Criatura
Criatura
Biohême
