Our tea buyers travel the world in search of the finest teas, and the very best quality leaves are what go into Yorkshire Gold. Maybe you’ve already tried it? If so, you’ll know it’s a wonderfully rich and luxurious cup of tea. To make it, we blend smooth and malty second flush Assam teas from India with fresh and lively leaves from the highlands of East Africa – especially Rwanda.

As a country, Rwanda has suffered serious hardships, none greater than the civil war in 1994. Since then, the tea industry has played a key role in the transformation of Rwanda and the welfare of its people.

We’ve been buying tea from Rwanda for over 37 years and for the last 3 years, we’ve been co-funding a UK government supported project that’s making a big difference to the lives of more than 10,000 tea farmers and their families. We call it Project Rwanda, and it’s something very important to us that we’d like to focus on over the next month. Play our video to discover more.

Our key aim is to help farms achieve Rainforest Alliance certification. To be certified, farms have to be well managed and practice more sustainable methods such as investing in new better waste water management.

What’s the incentive for them to do this? Well, being a Rainforest Alliance certified farm can be a really effective way to also increase yields, give farmers better prices for their harvests and improve workers’ living standards.

We benefit too, of course – by getting some great tea to help ensure you get a seriously good brew. We hope you’ll agree that it’s worth paying that little bit extra for. In our next blog, we’ll be looking in more detail at how Rainforest Alliance certification is improving quality.