Words: Ian Bryson / Images: Giulio Mazzarini
With 150 years’ heritage, Finlays is one of the worlds leading growers of tea, with extensive farms in Kenya, Sri Lanka, Argentina and a new processing facility in China. Being vertically integrated gives us control over the entire supply chain, enabling our customers to gain the best of our knowledge from bush to cup.
Any consumer who drinks a cup of tea from Finlays can do so with 100% confidence that it has been sustainably sourced and cared for throughout its journey. Using an example from the UK, we invite you to join us on a journey to see our supply chain in action. A journey that begins in the tea fields of Kenya and ends with the incomparable joy that can only be found in a great cup of Finlays tea.
- In Kericho, Kenya, one of our employees plucks the top two leaves and a bud from one of the bushes that cover almost 8,000 hectares.
- We sort the tea ensuring only the best quality leaves head to the processing facility via our sustainable ropeway.
- At the factory our leaf is expertly processed to capture its wonderful characteristics of colour and flavour.
- Packing the tea in foil-lined sacks, maintaining quality during shipping.
- All aboard!
- The freshly-arrived tea travels to our packing facility by road and rail.
- Our state-of-the-art packing facility in Yorkshire where we pack over 12m kgs of tea annually, equivalent to almost 4bn cups of tea.
- Packing the tea into blends to our customers’ specifications. Our master blenders have perfected it into a fine art.
- We taste the tea no fewer than seven times throughout its bush-to-cup journey.
- After passing our stringent quality process, the tea is packed on one of our many high-speed packing lines.
- At the distribution centre.
- Our tea – now our customer’s tea – arrives on the shelves of retailers across the UK.
- The tea arrives at homes across the UK. Time to put the kettle on.
- The perfect cup of tea. Most drinkers never stop to think about where their tea comes from. If only they knew…
