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Tea in Uganda: An origin worth watching
Tea in Uganda: An origin worth watching
In the west of Uganda, between the hills around Fort Portal and the lower slopes of the Rwenzori Mountains, tea fields have been part of the landscape for generations. The climate proved highly suited: cool nights, regular rainfall and fertile volcanic soils. Since the early twentieth century, tea has grown into one of the country’s most important export products.
Yet for many tea drinkers Uganda remains an unfamiliar origin. Undeservedly so. The country has everything needed for a versatile cup of tea with character: the terroir, the experience and a growing group of producers committed to quality and provenance.
From colonial plantation to reconstruction
The tea plant is not native to Uganda. The British colonial administration introduced its cultivation in the early twentieth century as part of a strategy to develop export crops in East Africa. The first plants came from India and Ceylon, present-day Sri Lanka. Commercial plantations emerged from the 1920s onwards.
In the decades that followed, tea became one of the main pillars of Ugandan agriculture. Until the regime of Idi Amin in the 1970s devastated the sector: plantations fell into neglect or were abandoned entirely. By the early 1980s the country was producing just five per cent of its 1974 output. Recovery came slowly and stretched well into the 1990s. Today Uganda is Africa’s third-largest tea producer, after Kenya and Malawi.
The Rwenzori Mountains and surroundings
The Rwenzori Mountains, once called the Mountains of the Moon by the local population, are the country’s most remarkable production area. Plantations are scattered across the lower slopes, between 1,200 and 1,800 metres above sea level. The dark volcanic soils reflect the geological richness of the Albertine Rift, an enormous geological fracture zone running north to south across the continent. It is one of the most biodiverse regions on earth, home to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (mountain gorillas) and the Virunga Massif, among others.
Beyond the Rwenzori Mountains, the regions around Fort Portal and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest play an important role. The combination of altitude, abundant rainfall and rich soil gives the tea from these areas a distinctive flavour profile.
Production methods
The majority of tea in Uganda is CTC: the leaves are processed by machines into small granules. This produces a strong, robust infusion, ideal for blends. Most of this CTC tea reaches Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan, the United Kingdom and Germany through the auction in Mombasa.
At the same time a smaller but growing segment of producers is deliberately moving away from CTC. They opt for orthodox processing and focus on green and white tea, with attention to provenance and craftsmanship. This creates, as in Malawi, a division in the sector: a large, volume-oriented production and a smaller group committed to quality and diversity.
Two rainy seasons
The plucking of leaves follows the rhythm of two rainy seasons: a longer season from March to May and a shorter one from September to November. During these periods plucking volumes are at their peak. In between, production slows but never stops entirely.
A cold winter that halts growth, as in India or Japan, is something the country simply does not experience. This gives Uganda a structural advantage, particularly for a sector of which some 95% is destined for export.
Climate under pressure
But the climate that makes this continuity possible is under pressure. Temperatures are rising steadily and rainfall is becoming more erratic. It is a trend that farmers in districts such as Buhweju and Kanungu are already feeling, with declining yields and shifting seasons as a result. Where the rains once came in March, destructive downpours now sometimes appear in January.
Working in tea
Alongside the large estates, Uganda has a growing sector of smallholder growers, known as outgrowers. They cultivate tea on plots of less than one hectare, often alongside other crops. They deliver their harvest to local processing factories. It is these growers, spread across the hills of the west and southwest, who play an increasingly important role in total production volume.
The government regards tea as a strategic export product and has taken measures to support both large-scale and smallholder production. Specialised agencies are responsible for quality regulation and promotion in foreign markets.
Women in the tea sector
In the regions around Fort Portal and the Bwindi forest, women hold a notably prominent position. In 2023 more than twelve hundred female tea farmers from 26 districts together founded Women in Tea Uganda.
The association provides a platform for knowledge sharing, collective bargaining and market access. Not a symbolic gesture, but the logical step in an evolution that has been underway for years.
Read more about Women in Tea Uganda.
Tea in daily life
Anyone ordering tea in Uganda will quickly encounter two varieties. Chai mukalu is black tea without milk, sometimes flavoured with ginger, lemongrass or bay leaf. The second variety appears on local restaurant menus as ‘African tea’: black tea boiled with milk and sugar, comparable to chai across much of East Africa. In both cases the leaves are boiled together with the water or milk.
Tea belongs to every moment of the day. At breakfast with chapatti, a flatbread of Indian origin, in the afternoon during a conversation, or at home in the evening. It is everywhere and always provides a reason to sit down together.
Future
Uganda’s tea sector has come a long way: from near-total collapse in the 1970s to an industry that today exports to multiple continents. The foundations are in place: a favourable climate, fertile soils, experienced growers and a growing group of producers who put quality and provenance at the centre of their work.
Whether that growth continues depends on the space that opens up for smallholder producers and specialty tea in a market still dominated by CTC volumes.
For those who look beyond the familiar tea countries, Uganda is an origin worth watching.
