Going to the East African Fine Coffee's Annual Conference in Ethiopia? (www.eafca.org) Meet Chip (our MD) who will be there for the week of the 14th Feb. Best way to get hold of him would be to leave a message at Malawi or Schluter booth's. 2007-01-27 From March 13-17th, we will be attending FOODEX 2007 in Tokyo Japan, where we have a booth in the JETRO zone. We will be displaying our tea and coffee products as well as offering tasters - see you there?! 2007-01-27 Deforestation is a major issue in Malawi, particularly in the Southern Region in which Satemwa is located. Between 1998 and 2002 the 2000ha Thyolo Mountain Forest Reserve adjacent to Satemwa was completely destroyed (a politician promised the land to local people if they voted for him in the elections). Increasing populations are only exacerbating an already bad situation with large scale environmental degradation taking place and heavy pressure on the few remaining forestry resources in the area (some of which are ours!!). It is with this in mind that Satemwa dontanted 3,000 Eucalyptus seedlings to the communities in 6 villages adjacent to the estate. On the 21st February 2007 a function was held at Mlenga Full Primary school to plant some trees and sensitize local communities on the importance of tree planting. it was attended by traditional authorities, Satemwa staff, officials from the local forestry office, villagers and school children. Apart from speeches, poetry recitals, dances and dramas were acted out all conveying the message about the advantages of planting trees. It must have had some impact, as Satemwa have been asked to make this an annual event. Not much given the situation, but as we say around here...at least... 2007-03-02 Alexander and Anette have just come back from a very useful trip to Japan and Taiwan. Those who want to know more about Malawi tea in Japanese will find the following articles interesting; Fantastic news recieved today. Satemwa is now Malawi's first Fair Trade certified tea producer - another first for Satemwa! The next challenge is to achieve our first sale of to a fair trade certified packer! We beleive this will have enourmous benefits for the development of the Satemwa Communities and will be posting much on this subject as it progresses. Our coffee is subject to the same fair trade certification inspection i.e. we use only soft chemicals that are not perceived to damage the enviornment. However estate grown coffees can not actually be sold as fair trade - an anomally in there somewhere, but we'll leave that for another day! Satemwa will be sharing a stand with Teacraft at the World Tea Expo to be held in Atlanta in June. For the first time this year, the World Tea Expo will feature a New Products Showcase. Our innovative and quailty white teas have been selected for display as one of the best new products on offer at the Expo. See http://www.worldteaexpo.com and http://www.worldteaexpo.com/2 2007-05-04 According to the Independant Newspaper in the UK, Satemwa is one of the world's top 5 Tea Hotels! read more at http://travel.independent.co.uk 2007-05-12 The last two months has seen the development of our latest style of white tea - a hand rolled pearl. It has a different profile to our other whites in that it has a distinctive fruity aroma and flavour. The pearls proved to be popular at the World Tea Expo 2007 as were the other whites. A number of famous tea personalities say that white tea can only come from the Fujan province of China. The tea world has always been conservative - fair play. Semantics aside, our 'white' tea's are proving very popular with the numerous visitors we have doing tea tastings and estate tours on Satemwa 2007-06-1 "Tesco is to slash an inflation-busting £270 million off the cost of shopping in its biggest-ever price blitz, showing once again why it is Britain’s Favorite Supermarket. Starting from next week, prices will tumble on more than 3,000 products ranging from nappies to bread with cuts as deep as 34%." - this is the start of a price war in the UK, with several other large supermarket chains offering similar cuts. We hope this dosen't mean increased pressure on our already marginal tea prices, very likely though. A Swahilli proverb goes 'when the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers' the ants being the producers of the raw materials in this case. 2007-06-24 Those of you in the US who want to try out our white teas can now find some of the range for sale at; http://teatreasures.com/page/Tea-Supplies/PROD/White-Tea/T4877 - as it is now summer time in the US, we recommend that you try drinking these teas cold - very refreshing. Jonathan from the Tea Embassy also recommends a dash bubbles by adding some mineral water! 2007-06-24 The Satemwa Joint body recieved recieved its first premium from Fair Trade sales this week. The Joint Body will meet next wednesday to discuss how to put their plans into action now that funds are available. 2007-08-18 We have just sold our first lot of coffee to Japan, a result of our attending FOOEDX20007 in March. 2007-08-28 Satemwa will have a stand in the 'Malawi Fair' to be held in Glasgow on the 1st November. the fair is being organised by the Scottish:Malawi partnership being driven by the Scottish Executive. So Satemwa Tea will at last be consumed in the city our founder; Maclean Kay! 2007-08-28 Wow - check out the praise for our white teas! Fame at last! http://www.nonsolonews.net/thread-50-0-3413-0/rec-food-drink-tea/Malawi-Teas.htm 2007-08-30 As with other products out of China, the Tea Industry is comming under heavy scrutiny. Some Chinese teas are said to have high pesticide and heavy metal residues. This has negatively affected volumes of imports into sensitive markets such as the EU and Japan. Check out more : http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-04/13/content_322923.htm Of course you know where to go shopping for your pesticide free tea - SATEMWA!! 2007-09-19 The Joint Body has purchased 8 push bikes for use by the members to sensitize employees and communities about the role of the Joint Body and Fair Trade in general. 2007-10-11 Satemwa is now assisting the outgrowers we work with to become Fiar Trade registered 2007-10-11 The UK retailer Sainsbury's have today announced that they will be taking 100% of their tea Fairtrade over the next 3 years. This move will increase size of the Fairtrade tea market in the UK from 3,000 to 9,000 tonnes according to James Finley. Watch this space for news on how Satemwa can participate in this. 2007-10-11 The National Taste of Harvest competition was held in Malawi on the 23/10 under the auspices of the East African Fine Coffee's Association - Satemwa's entry with a score of 81.92 (as per SCAA scoring) was placed 4th overall and was the 2nd best estate coffee in the 2007 competition. This coffee will now go forward to the regional competition to be held in Uganda in Febuary 2008. 2007-10-25 The Satemwa Joint Body has contracted for a borehole to be built at a cost of +/- U$5,000 in a trading centre and market place adjacent to the estate. 2007-10-25 ''The Times' of the Uk had an article on the 25/10 about the Soil Association of the UK looking into their certified producers now meeting 'stringent ethical standards' and that 'farmers must start investing in local communities, allow their workers to form unions and fund education schemes'. All good stuff, only question is who pays for it? The UK consumers are spending less and less of their income on food as a percentage, yet want higher and higher standards. 2007-10-26 This week we have had a Japanese visitor who is working with us in the development of a Ph-eur style fermented green tea. The results of our first trials should be ready by christmas! For those of you looking for that healthy dieting supliment - watch this space! 2007-11-23 Fairtrade update - we are trying to finalise a contract with Finlay's for the supply of tea for their Coop and Sainsbury's contracts in the new year. The value of this in terms of premium funds for use on development projects by Satemwa wokers and communities ill be in excess of U$200,000! An unheard of sum in the poor rural community of Thyolo. The Joint body has just recieved their second lot of premium funds and the borehole contracted from the first lot of funds is now in use 2007-11-23 The new fairtrade minimum price for malawi has been announced as 95cents plus 10cents 'sustainability' premium. It is a dissapointing sum and means that improvements required by FLO for certification will still have to come from our bottom line (a migure 1.7% NP averaged over the last 7 years). Indeed the figure of 95cents is significanlty below our COP. The one positive aspect of the minimum price is that consumers of fairtrade teas will now get a better quality product as packers will find no benefit in buying low quality teas to blend in in order to get the price down. 2007-11-23 White teas - read a new fan of our Antlers' tasting notes; http://www.nonsolonews.net/thread-50-0-4588-0/rec-food-drink-tea/Malawi-White-Teas.htm 2007-12-14 | 
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