Times are tough in Zimbabwe in 2002. The country is facing famine following the forcible seizure of land from white farmers and political violence in the wake of the presidential elections. Food security is high on the agenda of millions of Zimbabweans.
In the bushveld of the eastern highlands, a bush grows wild. Its leaves can be dried and used as tea. The tea is not only consumed by the Makoni people who live in the eastern highlands – it is now packaged and marketed as a herbal brew to markets abroad.
The makoni plant grows in the bushveld of Manicaland Province. It has been used for thousands of years as a medicine; people only began brewing a tea from its leaves in the past century. People in Manicaland say the tea can cure rheumatism, stomach ache, help pregnant women have an easy childbirth – and can even cure snakebite.
In 1998, one of the largest NGOs in Southern Africa, called the Southern Alliance for Indigenous Resources (Safire), helped the people establish the Indigenous Tea Producers Association. Safire works with people in rural Zimbabwe, particularly to establish community-based natural resource management programmes. It acts as a service provider to communities, helping them to become self-sufficient.
“Safire showed us that we can make money. We didn’t know there was money to be made from this bush that grows everywhere. Before Safire came, only the old people used this tea, mostly the women,” says Constantine Magunda, treasurer of the Indigenous Tea Producers Association.
Safire helped the Makoni people draw up a project proposal and trained them in running a business. They went to visit a tea company near Bulawayo to see how tea is processed. In 1999 they formed a committee to manage the tea business.
“When we started, we had only 50 members, now there are more than 100,” says Magunda. The members of the association pick the tea in the morning and dry it out in the afternoon sun. “We have to ensure there is high quality control. Spotted leaves are no good for the tea. We have two grades to measure the quality of the tea. If it is harvested before the plant is matured, it tastes different and the colour is different. We pay people according to the grades,” explains Magunda.
The association hired quality controllers who travel around the area to buy the harvests. The tea is processed, packaged and marketed by a private company already in the tea business, called Tulimara.
“Our people can make other traditional foods as well. We have jams, nuts and cowpeas that we can package and sell,” Magunda says. “There is already a lot of interest in the mushrooms that grow in our forests. Our members are picking them and Tulimara is selling them on a profit-sharing basis.”
It took a while for Makoni Tea to take off because of a lack of funds for promotion and public awareness. But it is becoming popular among overseas outlets – for instance, it is being sold to a Fair Trade company in Italy, called Commercio Alternativo.
“Those who were laughing at us are now proud of us. We are making money now. The school leavers in our community are joining us because they can see we are making money.
“This year we had very little rain, but the tea was not affected. In fact, it looks like we are going to have a bumper harvest.” Last season the Makoni people picked 400kg of tea and 298kg in 2000.
Now that they have realised there is money to be made, the Makoni community have themselves made arrangements to ensure the plant is protected. “We use chiefs and headmen to educate people not to burn the bush where the tea grows,” Magunda says. “We are also trying to cultivate the plant. At the moment, we have some plots and have planted seed, but it has not yet grown enough so we can harvest it. We have been monitoring the plants at three different plots over the past three seasons. We are also looking at different propagation techniques.
“But this plant is difficult to cultivate. The seed is sterile and the root is like a tuber, so we have to take a piece of the plant and replant it. We are also examining the impact of irrigation on the quality of the tea. And finally, we are trying to establish whether it is possible to harvest at any other time of the year.”
All this research work is community-based. Safire gave the project funding to develop an enterprise, not for research. So the community has set up a committee called the natural resources managing committee.
“We have realised ourselves that because this plant can’t be propagated easily through seed, we have to carefully manage the resource,” Magunda says. The Makoni chiefs and headmen have established bylaws to ensure the forest is not burned and to stop people from cutting the makoni bushes.
Beauty Jiji, of Safire, says one of the problems facing the Indigenous Tea Producers’ Association is that there are very few men involved. “The work is very labour-intensive, which is probably why only women do it. But when it is time to make payments – we pay Z$250 per kilogram – that is when you see mostly men hanging around,” Jiji says. “I am 66 years old, and I am a man and I can work hard,” Magunda, who exudes Madiba energy, interrupts.
Jiji says one of the problems Safire encountered when establishing the tea project was that no research had been conducted on the makoni plant. “We had to start from scratch. Safire did biochemical analysis on the plant to see what it contained. “It has a large amount of zinc, which boosts the immune system. Traditionally, people believe it is a blood cleanser. It also contains a large amount of calcium, which is good for strong teeth and bones,” she says. “We also tested the tea to see if it meets international standards for herbal teas, and it does.
“We used the first harvest only for product development. The second harvest we used as samples, asking people to do in-store testing, sending samples overseas to Europe and America, and giving hotels packets they could put in their rooms. That’s how we developed our market.
“The tea sells for Z$150 per 40g box, which is quite expensive by Zimbabwean standards, so we are focusing on the overseas market. The major reason for the high price is the expensive packaging. The tea bags and cellophane are imported from the UK, and at current exchange rates this is very, very expensive.
“But we are beginning to cover our costs. Safire put Z$300 000 into the project to build a warehouse and make the initial purchase of tea. We are not planning to provide more funding, we would like to withdraw from this project now.” There used to be a stigma associated with makoni tea before this project was established. It was seen as a tea for elderly women who drank it to cure “female problems”. Young people believed that only poor people drank makoni tea when they had no money for shop-bought beverages.
But now the tea is developing a reputation as a cash-crop and a cure for many ills.