Mombasa's Tea Auctions Keep Tradition Brewing

MOMBASA, Kenya -- The technological revolution may have forced its demise in London but the tradition of selling tea at auction is flourishing at a leisurely pace in the Kenyan port town of Mombasa.


A rare success story in Kenya, Mombasa's relatively young auction - the first was held in 1969 - is now the second largest in the world behind the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, with about 5 million kilograms sold every week.


Older and nobler auctions have fallen by the wayside.


In 1998, London held its last auction after 319 years, in part because technological advances meant European traders could simply place buy orders through faxes and the Internet to Mombasa and Colombo.


Despite some initial skepticism, Mombasa has kept the flag flying and preserved most, if not quite all, the traditions in the colorful history of selling tea.


One to disappear was the practice of lighting a huge candle at the beginning of an auction and bidding for each lot for as long as it took 2.25 centimeters of wax to burn away. With 1,403 lots sold this week alone, auction organizers would have had to find a candle 35 meters high.


Every Monday, more than 100 representatives from the world's leading tea exporters meet in a slightly shabby building on a hot and dusty Mombasa street.


In a high-ceilinged hall, a distinguished-looking Englishman in the auctioneer's box coaxes his audience.


"No sir," he says. "You know I can't do that. I can't go below $1.90 [a kilogram] on this tea. If you tasted it you would appreciate it. It's neat, it's clean and it's free of fiber."


Waiters make their way around the room, pouring cups of tea for the assembled buyers. There is not a computer in sight in this genteel world where participants address each other as "sir" in a style more akin to a gentleman's club or a British public school than a cut-throat multi-million dollar industry.


But despite an atmosphere suggestive of cigar smoke and slippers, this is a fast-moving world where auctioneers and traders have all done their homework well in advance.


Before each auction, Norman Wilson, an auctioneer since Mombasa became a tea-selling center, will have valued each tea in another time-honored tradition.


In the tasting room of the Africa Tea Brokers firm across the street from the auction building, an exact amount of tea is measured into an army of small pots. Putting his highly trained palate to full use, Wilson makes his way down the room sifting and smelling tea before slurping a mouthful, savoring it for a moment and then depositing it in a large spittoon.


That process is replicated in all the tea houses across the city and by the time of the auction, each line in the catalogue is known intimately.


Despite a setback last year when a drought helped push down production by 17 percent, in the process, knocking Kenya off the No. 1 spot as the world's largest exporter after Sri Lanka, traders and brokers alike say Mombasa should get even bigger.


But they are adamant that the quaint, yet highly efficient and transparent auction system will remain. They cannot see things happening any other away.