African Entrepreneurship Record

Therefore, Ernst said, ”Tea is one of the world’s three major beverages, and among these three, we have two as dominant industries in East Africa. This is because both tea and coffee have geographical restrictions. As for alcoholic beverages, they are quite abundant. Various grains, melons, fruits, and even other plants can be used as raw materials for brewing. In short, every region has its own alcohol products.”

In fact, alcohol in East Africa should also be considered an advantageous industry, but this advantage is not very prominent compared to coffee and tea beverages.

Currently, the advantage of coffee in East Africa is unshakeable, as it is well-known that the quality of East African coffee is famous worldwide.

In this regard, tea is less comparable because there are so many varieties of tea. The tea varieties introduced in East Africa are of small types from the Far East Empire, requiring special cultivation. The number of tea varieties introduced from the Far East Empire has reached hundreds.

This involves East Africa’s extensive strategy in the tea industry. One important reason why Indian tea has not been able to replace Far East tea is due to the difficulty in matching the taste of Far East tea.

To solve this problem, East Africa’s solution is to carry out large-scale experimental planting, then select the best in terms of taste and yield for mass cultivation.

”The cultivation range of coffee is smaller than that of tea, basically confined to tropical areas, while tea can be widely distributed in subtropical areas and even grow better. This is one reason the Far East Empire became the leading tea-producing country. An important reason our northern tea region stands out among tea-producing areas is the highland terrain and yield advantage. The highlands ensure the quality of East African tea, and the highland terrain also makes it convenient to plant tea gardens.”

Of course, tea has higher terrain requirements. Generally, mountainous and hilly highland terrains are the most suitable. East Africa is a highland region, while the Far East Empire has complex and diverse terrains. The Assam tea region in India is mostly vast plains, but its quality is much lower than that of the Far East Empire and East Africa.

This is not an exaggeration for East Africa. In previous generations, Kenya surpassed India and the Far East Empire in tea exports for decades, mainly because of its excellent quality and large production.

Of course, this is also related to Kenyans’ lack of a habit of drinking tea. Most of their tea is used for export, thus maintaining a long-term advantage in the international market.

In past generations, both the Far East Empire and India had extremely rich domestic tea markets. During the colonial era, India cultivated numerous tea enthusiasts. Of course, Indian tea mainly appeared in the form of milk tea, and street milk tea shops in India were quite common.

East Africa also has milk tea, primarily in the northern pastures and some livestock-developed areas where milk tea demand is high. The northern pastures are close to the northern tea region, and the high milk yield there, combined, led to an increase in milk tea production. Of course, the northern pastures are also an important consumption area for East African black tea.

In the northern industrial belt, dairy product supply is abundant, including milk tea and coffee with milk, which are very popular. Hence, the northern industrial belt is also a region that combines the production and consumption of the world’s three major beverages.

”In addition to the northern and southern tea regions, the Great Lakes Region is also an excellent tea and coffee producing area. However, its scale currently cannot compare to the northern and southern tea regions, which must be taken seriously, especially the West Great Lake Province (Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, etc.). The tea market still has substantial profits, so providing more variety choices also helps East African tea open up the market.”

The East African highlands are generally considered high-quality tea-producing areas, which is an exclusive advantage of East Africa. In previous generations, every East African country produced tea, even if not located on the East African highlands. Tea production on the East African highlands indicates other highland areas in East Africa also suit tea cultivation, given the overall similar environment.

”Of course, the biggest disadvantage of our East African tea industry is in industrial production, especially mechanization, where we lag far behind India. Therefore, we must make an effort in mechanized tea production. Apart from importing tea production machinery from Austria, we must also build related machinery production enterprises ourselves.”

As a semi-industrial country, East Africa is far behind European countries in the field of machinery manufacturing, particularly in mechanized tea production, which is completely underdeveloped.

This is because most of East Africa’s industry and technology sources come from the German regions, which do not produce tea, so naturally, there is no relevant machinery production and technological accumulation.

The most advanced in this field is the UK. The UK has been planting tea in India for more than a decade earlier than East Africa. Now, Indian tea factories have large mechanical factories with hundreds of workers.

Yet, as the world’s largest tea producer and the third largest industrial producer, the Far East Empire and East Africa are still relying on traditional methods to produce tea.

The situation in East Africa is slightly better, as Austria has been specially commissioned to design and produce tea-making machines. However, the effects are unsatisfactory.

After all, for Austria, this was a field never before encountered. Thus, the machines used in East African tea production plants have unsatisfactory efficiency, sometimes not even replacing manual labor, with high failure rates and expensive maintenance costs.

Therefore, Ernst continued, ”Our tea production capability is still too weak. We must make corresponding improvements to address the unreliability of machine production. The previous approach of commissioning foreign designs and production now seems unworkable. Therefore, we still need to hire a professional team from Europe to customize machines for East Africa’s tea production based on the traditional East African tea production process.”

Besides, this approach has the advantage of promptly resolving various issues that arise after machine operation and making targeted improvements.

The downside is obvious, which is the high cost. However, East Africa’s tea industry can bring substantial profits to East Africa every year, so the money spent on technology is acceptable to the East African government.

Regarding tea income, the East African government is much stronger than the Far East Empire and India. The tea tax in the Far East Empire is quite chaotic, even negligible.

Since tea is one of the most important export products of the Far East Empire, before the Opium War, tea alone was a significant export product to Britain, allowing the Far East Empire to have a trade surplus with Britain (where the total value of exported goods exceeds the total value of imported goods).

The annual tea export volume of the Far East Empire now reaches about 100,000 tons, with almost every year showing growth. However, the tea tax of the Far East Empire does not increase and has been maintained at a level of several hundred thousand taels per year, which is too low and far unworthy of its status as the largest tea producer and consumer country. If the tea tax could be clarified, it would solve the government’s fiscal problems, but this seems challenging.

As for India, it is purely a colony. No matter how much tea is grown, the profits belong to the British, contributing little to the Indian homeland.

Although the size of the tea industry in East Africa is much smaller than that of the Far East Empire and India, the profit value obtained is entirely local to East Africa, benefiting both the government and the tea workers. Therefore, the government pays great attention to tea income.

Thus, the government level is very keen to promote the scale of tea cultivation, expand the East African tea market, and improve tea production efficiency.