Behind every cup of SPILL is a good tea farmer.

And behind every farmer, is an Olive.

Olive is an agronomist.

She works with new tea farmers in Rugabano (where our tea comes from) to develop the best practises for growing the best tasting tea. 

The farmers are not new to farming - they all grow their own crops. But some are new to tea.

Olive and fellow agronomists provide tea training to new farmers. 

And then together, they will tackle what nature throws at them…  

 - Like rain - too much, not enough.

 - Same for sunshine.

 - And the soil. What it needs more, or less, of? 

 - What can be planted alongside the tea to help it grown stronger?

There’s a lot to it.

Those plants don’t grow themselves.

We asked Olive if we could take her photograph.

She agreed. And asked if she should go and stand by a tea plant.

We said she could stand where she liked. And suggested a photo by her bike - Olive gets around on a motorbike. It’s the only motorbike in the area. Pretty cool.

She smiled. Hesitated. Then said maybe next to a tea plant would be better.

That’s what she does after all. Appropriate.

So we took photos of Olive by the tea plants.

When we were done, we asked again - “sure you don’t want some more photos?”

“Whatever you need…” she said.

“We’ll send you the photos after” we told her “might as well get some you’ll want to keep yourself”. 

“OK then” she said… “maybe one or two with the bike…”

So our friend, Dave took a bunch of photos of Olive with her bike.

And we watched her come to life. 

There’s a place for work.
And there’s a place for play.

You can read more about the work ROS in supporting local subsistence farmers to become tea farmers here.