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Historical Background of Tea Plantation in Ethiopia

Tea, as a beverage and plantation, is a recent introduction to Ethiopia.  Arab and Indian traders could well be credited for its introduction in the urban areas of Ethiopia.  Whatever its origin, however, tea has made considerable headway in establishing itself as an alternative hot beverage at least in the urban areas. The annual national tea consumption is about 3,500 tons, a far cry from that of coffee with an annual estimated domestic consumption of about 100,000 tons. 

Ethiopia’s favorable conditions for tea plantation were not unknown until the beginning of the last century.  A Lebanese investor is known to have first tried to grow tea in Gumaro in the early fifties in the Illubbabor Zone of Oromiya.  But the credit for establishing large-scale tea plantations goes to the government, which had launched the Gumaro and Wush Wush projects in the 1980s.  The long season of cloudy sky and outbreaks of rain and drizzle, which characterizes the climate of that part of the country, are significant factors for a viable tea plantation.

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