People think colonization was a long time ago.
My grandmother is still alive and she lived it.
— Janice Kinyua
I spoke with Janice Kinyua, co-founder of Teagoni Tea Farm, because her story sits at the intersection of legacy, land, and value creation in Africa.
This conversation is more than just tea.
It’s about who owns production, who captures value, and how history still shapes today’s economics, often quietly.
Why Janice matters (quick skim)
What she’s building: A modern tea farm and tourism venture reclaiming family land in Tigoni, Kenya
Why it matters: African farmers still do the hardest work while capturing the least value
What she sees differently: Ownership is more than land alone. It’s control of the entire value chain
Let’s get into it.🚀
The Weight of Legacy
“Did you know my grandfather had to prove he didn’t steal his own car?”
Janice said this with a mix of disbelief and anger because the story is recent. Not abstract. Not distant history.
During colonial rule, her grandmother was restricted to working on tea farms, never owning one. Her grandfather, determined to break that ceiling, eventually found a workaround in the 1980s: forming a company on paper with trusted friends just to legally purchase 22 acres of land in Tigoni.
Even after acquiring the land, scrutiny followed.
Her grandfather was once summoned by a District Officer to explain how he could afford his car. Janice remembers her grandmother fearing he wouldn’t return or that the car would be confiscated.
“It’s wild,” Janice told me. “People think colonization was such a long time ago. But my grandma is still alive, and she lived this.”
The Line I Can’t Forget
History is often closer than we think.
Same Script, New Characters
Janice is clear-eyed about the economics of tea farming today.
Despite owning the land and doing the labor, farmers earn almost nothing compared to the value extracted downstream.
“My grandmother earns 24 shillings per kilogram of tea leaves,” Janice explained.
The factory sells that same tea for 900 shillings per kilogram at auction.
Regulations make it worse. Farmers with under 100 acres aren’t allowed to process their own tea, forcing them into government-run factories.
Janice calls it what it is: modern colonization.
“I feel like we’re being ripped off,” she said plainly. “But we’re not giving up.”
Land without processing power is still dependency.
Turning Land Into Leverage
Instead of waiting for the system to change, Janice and her sister Wendy started Teagoni Tea Farm & Tours.
The strategy is intentional:
Start with education and tea tours
Build brand and awareness
Raise capital to eventually process their own tea
Janice lit up when she explained what’s possible once control shifts.
“From one tea plant, you can make black tea, green tea, white tea, flavored tea, even kombucha.”
The constraint takes creativity and turns it into access.
The Play
Use tourism and storytelling to fund long-term infrastructure
Build demand before building factories
Treat legacy land as a platform, not a relic
Choosing the Harder Path
Janice doesn’t pretend this road is easy.
Convincing her 86-year-old grandmother that her grandchildren’s ideas will work? Hard.
Convincing herself? Even harder.
“Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve just climbed the corporate ladder”
But the vision keeps her grounded: one where African tea isn’t just exported raw, but designed, branded, and valued at the source.
She’s especially excited about health-focused products:
gut health blends
anti-inflammatory teas
calming, functional infusions
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…”
“People are more mindful about what they consume,” she said. “We can meet that moment.”
The Real Takeaway
Building something meaningful often means choosing uncertainty over comfort.
The J&F Takeaways
Colonial systems didn’t disappear, they evolved
Value capture matters more than output volume
Processing power is economic power
Legacy land can become modern infrastructure
The hardest path often leads to the most leverage
That’s a wrap
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If one part of Janice’s story stayed with you, hit reply and tell me which — I read every response.
Know someone thinking about agriculture, land, or ownership in Africa?
Forward this to them.
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— Jasiel
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