When you make a cup of Ringtons tea at home, it probably feels like a simple, everyday moment. But those tea leaves have travelled a long way to reach your kitchen.
Recently, we visited Malawi, one of the key tea growing regions behind our traditional blend. Visiting our tea growing regions matters to us. It gives us the chance to walk the fields, talk to the people who grow and harvest the leaves, and see the production for ourselves. Staying close to origin helps us protect the flavour, strength and consistency that make Ringtons tea what it is.
Our Malawian tea grows around the base of Mount Mulanje. It’s an impressive setting and one of the country’s most important tea growing landscapes. Wide, open spaces are filled with rolling fields of tea bushes, all backed by the mountain itself.
Malawi’s climate plays a big role in shaping the character of the tea. It’s hot. There’s heavy rainfall. And during peak season, the bushes grow fast, sometimes aggressively fast. That might sound ideal, but rapid growth needs careful control.
Producing consistent, high quality black tea in these conditions takes experience. It’s about knowing when to pluck, how to manage the fields and how the weather will affect the leaf.
That’s why our long term partnerships matter. The people we work with understand the land and the seasonality of tea. By staying closely connected, working collaboratively and visiting regularly, we ensure the tea we source continues to meet Ringtons standards year after year.
The People Behind the Tea
While we were there, we spent time with Robin, an experienced field manager responsible for nearly 2,000 hectares of tea, roughly 2,800 football pitches.
His role covers cultivation, growth and harvesting. In simple terms, he helps ensure the tea leaves are picked at just the right point. Too early or too late, and the flavour changes.
Watching the field teams at work is always a reminder that good tea doesn’t begin in a factory. It begins in the field with careful plucking, close monitoring and real attention to detail, but it doesn’t stop there.
From Green Leaf to Black Tea
Once the freshly picked green leaf reaches the factory, the transformation begins.
It takes around 18 hours for those leaves to move through the full production process, withering, cutting, oxidisation and then drying.
Small adjustments at any stage can affect the final flavour in your cup. A little more oxidisation can change the colour. A slight variation in drying can affect strength or brightness.
That’s why we spend time reviewing the process on site. Tasting. Asking questions. Planning for the season ahead. It helps us protect the flavour profile and consistency you expect when you open a packet of Ringtons tea.
Because when it comes to your daily cuppa, consistency really does matter to us.
What Does Malawian Tea Taste Like?
Malawian black tea has a crisp, refreshing quality with plenty of body. In everyday terms, that means it has strength and structure, the kind that stands up well to milk.
That’s why it plays such an important role in our traditional blend. It brings balance, depth and a satisfying finish to the cuppa.
It may be just one component in a blend, but it makes a noticeable difference.
Supporting Tea Growing Communities
While in Mulanje, we also visited the Kangaza tea nursery, a project established by the Ethical Tea Partnership, ETP, to support smallholder farmers in the local area.
Hearing directly from tea farmers about how the nursery has supported their livelihoods was a powerful reminder that responsible tea sourcing goes beyond flavour.
For us, quality and care go hand in hand. Supporting tea growing communities helps protect the future of the people behind the tea and the long term sustainability of the crop itself.
From Origin to Your Cup
Trips like this always fill our cup. They’re not just about observation. They’re about protecting the quality, flavour and consistency that define Ringtons tea. The Ringtons Way.
From the fields at the foot of Mount Mulanje to the blend in your kitchen cupboard, there are skilled hands guiding every stage. So next time you put the kettle on, you can be confident there’s real care behind your cup.