A Malawian Cup of Tea

In the south of Malawi you might be surprised to find tea plantations. One of the more famous ones is Satemwa Tea Estate. It's situated just outside of Thyolo, on the road between Thyolo and Blantyre. I had read about their guest house and it sounded quite colonial (silver service dinners) and was very interested in seeing it. Also we had heard that the route between Mulanje and Blantyre via Thyolo was very scenic. All the rumors were true.

We left Mulanje early, so that we'd have time to stop for a bit of tea tourism. Unfortunately it had rained the night before and on tea plantations, roads are not tarred. We did have a 4x4, but Anna had never driven it on slippery mud/clay roads before. So off we went, into Satemwa Tea Estate, but we didn't get very far before we started slipping and sliding. We had to get out into the mud and lock the wheels, then figure out how to put it into four wheel drive. It was still pretty scary at first, but Anna soon got the hang of it. (With some telephonic help from Iain and some bad advice from a guy in an Isuzu van.)
It was totally worth it when we arrived at the guest house.
Huntingdon House is picturesque. As we arrived, two waiters - Amos and Ibrahim- came out to welcome us. We wanted scones and tea, but were told the scones would take a while, since they're made to order! We considered the long drive to Cape Mc Clear, and decided we shouldn't stay long. But the thought of hot scones... We decided we could compromise, order the scones and take them for the road. So we ordered our tea, I think I ordered white tea and Anna ordered the classic black Satemwa tea.
Then we had a tour of the guest house. It used to be the family house, and each room is named after a member of the family. Every room is beautiful and decorated slightly differently. There are only 5 rooms in the house, so it can never be crowded.
After the tour we were still thinking about the scones and also how well hot scones would go with hot tea, rather than scones on the road. We tried to find out how much longer it would take for the scones to be ready. However; like things in Malawi are never far away, they also never take too long. So we never did get a straight answer from Amos or Ibrahim about how much longer it would take for the scones to be ready. We decided to order more tea. I ordered some green tea, Anna ordered a different type of black. Even so, we didn't get to try all the teas on the menu.
To our delight, shortly after the second order of tea, the hot scones arrived. With strawberry jam, cream and cheese. They were as delicious as anticipated. Completely worth the wait.

While we had our scones and tea we watched them set up for a game of croquet on the lawn and, except for the good weather, we could've been somewhere in England.

On our way out, Anna had really gotten the hang of the slippery roads and we sailed through, back to the main road. We did come across someone who wasn't so lucky though.

While visiting the tea estates was a pleasurable experience for us from a tourist perspective, it was with mixed feelings.
Freddy (one of our porters) told us that a tea picker earns K270 per day. The equivalent of about R9/day, just over $1/day. They work more than 8 hours a day (probably closer to 12 hours). Not inside an air conditioned office, back breaking work.
Statistics say that many people in Malawi survive on less than $1 per day, so maybe tea pickers are not the worst paid, but it doesn't seem too far off from slave labour.
Freddy also told us that the owner of Lujeri tea estate, where we started our hike, is an Englishman who lives in England. The day to day running of the estate is managed by a white South African. Freddy didn't say this with any bitterness or resentment, he was just answering our questions. He also said that the present manager was a good man, without us asking.
At Satemwa, we bumped into the manager's wife, and she didn't seem Malawian. The lady who seemed to be in charge of Huntingdon House sounded South African to me.
I also wondered about the wages of the waiters at Huntingdon House who served us so pleasantly. I'm guessing it isn't fantastic. Even so, they went out of their way to give us excellent service.

So the question is: by visiting the tea estates, were we supporting the status quo? Or were we ensuring someone a job and doing a little to improve the economic state of Malawi just a bit? Because if K270 pays one tea picker, we paid the wages of more than 10 in the few hours we were there.