Tanganda Tea Tanganda Tea Tanganda Tea is the biggest grower and producer of tea and coffee in Zimbabwe and one of the biggest tea producers in Africa. It is a competing food corporation in Zimbabwe, and forms part of the Meikles Group, a major Zimbabwean company which also owns hotels and department stores in southern Africa. Tanganda is based in Mutare (formerly Umtali) in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). The first tea bushes planted in Zimbabwe originated from a box of seeds smuggled out of India in 1924 by Mrs Florence Phillips, a tea-planter’s wife from Assam, and were planted
Tea production in the United States credited annual production at 12,000 pounds. By 1893, the Pinehurst plants were sufficiently established for the first leaf plucking. Dr. Shepard secured laborers for the fields by opening a school and making tea-picking part of its curriculum, essentially ensuring a force of child labor while providing them with an education they might not otherwise obtain. Dr. Shepard's final report indicated the chief expense in the production of tea was the gathering of the leaf, which amounted to approximately 50% of labour costs, but this did not preclude the profitable production of the crop even when sold at prices as low