Chinga Tea Factory in Othaya, Nyeri county, has commissioned an orthodox tea line to diversify and improve earnings for farmers.
KTDA head of field services and agriculture Kanja Thuku on Friday said the orthodox line was started a month ago.
Diversifying to orthodox tea processing, he said, will enable KTDA to get new markets to earn farmers more.
Orthodox tea refers to the loose tea that is produced using the traditional method of production, which involves plucking, withering. rolling, oxidation and drying.
it is made using different machinery and is not fermented during processing as is the case with CTC tea.
“Chinga Tea Factory has already started selling orthodox tea. Ten KTDA factories are doing orthodox and our target is to have every factory produce about 20 per cent of orthodox tea and 80 per cent of CTC (cut, tear and curling) tea,” he said on Friday.
Thuku said the orthodox tea fetches better prices and is yet to flood the tea market, thus lucrative.
“We have seen tea prices come down and as an organisation, KTDA has adopted a strategy of diversifying our product instead of relying on one product,” he said.
Thuku also said tea production improved in January due to the prolonged rains.
The good production recorded has not been recorded in any month of January for a long time, he said.
“That means we have taken more tea in the market though the demand does not commensurate with the supply,” he added.
