ChakanCha Tea Project Story

Here’s the problem…

Tea pickers in Kenya, the largest tea exporter in the world, are living under the poverty line, earning less than $70 per month. We have noticed that their labor cost is accounted for less than 1% of retail price for normal black teas– and that it takes almost six months after its production to be delivered to tea lovers, while the export price from Kenya is less than 3% of the retail price.

After thorough research, we have found that the 3 million tea pickers in Kenya cannot escape from their 5,000-year poverty trap in the tea industry without outsiders creating a new global value chain for them. That’s where we come in.

How are we going to solve that problem?

Before we address our solution, we want to share the following insights that helped us figure out what the farmers of Tumoi village need, and how we can help them get it.

1. Tea farmers cannot escape this historic poverty trap by themselves, as they have no control over the large scale variables at play in the global value chain, which are decisive in determining their wage levels.
2. A living wage is their minimum required wage level for tea pickers in Kenya to become economically independent.
3. We can create a new global value chain by using IT technologies and smart logistics for tea, which will deliver fresher tea straight from farm to cup to tea lovers around the world, without any exploitation.

So what in the world brought Kenya, Korea, and Texas together?

We at Texas State University are fair, honest, and full of compassion. In particular, Entrepreneurial Innovators Group (EIG) at Texas State is a community of ambitious students seeking opportunity for positive change, and ChakanCha was right up our alley! This project is not only an ethical business venture to learn from, but a chance to make a tangible impact through international collaborations. From farm to heart, we hope this Kickstarter campaign can spark more love and compassion across the globe.

Before Texas joined, ChakanCha started as a project initiated by the Global Problem Solving Lab (GPS Lab) at Handong Global University in Korea. We aim to prove that we can solve a global problem for others during the Coronavirus pandemic, aiming to become more viral than the virus itself. This international effort is proof that no matter how distant, we are still connected- and we can still care for each other, despite the challenges we face in 2020. The common thread is love– and together, we can help the Kenyan community of Tumoi build themselves up and end this systemic poverty trap.

The tea farmers’ battle with poverty is a crucial issue we must solve together… that includes you! With your help, we can make ChakanCha come to life; more importantly, we can empower the  Tumoi community to create the changes they wish to see.