(Posted 14th October 2026)
Courtesy of Africa Brew Brief / LinkedIn
Uganda is Africa’s second-largest tea exporter by volume.
Yet it earns less than Rwanda and Malawi.
Let that sink in.
THE NUMBERS
• Exports fell from 77,104t (2021) to 59,860t (2024)
• Revenue down 34% to ~$56M
• Mombasa price in 2023: Uganda $0.71/kg vs Kenya $2.22 vs Rwanda $3.15
• Green leaf crashed to Shs200/kg at the farm gate
• ~1 million livelihoods depend on tea
HOW IT WORKS TODAY
• About 90% of Ugandan tea leaves the country as bulk CTC through the Mombasa auction
• Once blended in Kenya, it stops being Ugandan
• Pakistan takes roughly 79% of direct export value
• The brand, the margin and the story all live somewhere else
WHAT GOVERNMENT HAS DONE
• A Shs310bn rescue plan
• A Shs35bn tax write-off
• Factories declared export processing zones
• But the tea policy promised for May 2024 is still unfinished, and a Tea Authority has been dismissed as a “colonial” idea
THE HARD QUESTIONS
1. Is Uganda a tea nation, or a leaf-picking service for other people’s brands?
2. Are bailouts saving farmers, or rewarding badly run factories?
3. When farmers uproot tea for bananas, is that failure, or the smartest decision in the chain?
LESSONS FOR AFRICAN AGRIBUSINESS
1. Volume is not value. Target price per kilo, not tonnes.
2. Never let a neighbour’s market own your origin.
3. Single-buyer dependency is a sovereignty risk.
4. Regulation is not colonialism.
5. Bailouts must buy reform.
THE TWIST
Uganda’s coffee has gone the other way, with record exports and growing origin recognition. Same farmers, same soil, very different outcomes.
So what can Ugandan tea learn from Ugandan coffee? That conversation happens in the room.
ORIGIN CUP – UGANDA EDITION | LONDON | FRIDAY 30 OCTOBER 2026
• Buyers, investors, exporters and policymakers
• Not a cupping session, but a deal room for Uganda’s origin story
Read the full Africa Brew Brief: https://lnkd.in/ePMizCTY
