Kugula
Kugula · to buy
The House
Manna & Leaf is a house for the finest harvests of the South. We taste every lot before we buy it, pack it in caddies made to be kept, and name where each tea was grown.
Manna & Leaf
Masamba
Masamba · leaves
Whole Leaf
Two leaves and a bud, picked by hand. We sell only whole loose leaf, never dust in a teabag, so you can see the quality before you taste it and watch it open in the pot.
Dziko
Dziko · the land
From the South
Everything we sell grows around the Tropic of Capricorn: rooibos from the Cederberg, and tea from Satemwa in Malawi's highlands. One region, one story, every cup.
Ways to enjoy loose leaf
Stories from the farm, the hills and the teapot: where our tea comes from, and how to make the most of every leaf.
Launching for Mothering Sunday
Be first to the first harvest.
We launch on 7 March 2027. Leave your email and we will write when the first caddies are ready.
The launch range
The Tea
Six loose leaf teas from two places around the Tropic of Capricorn. Here is what each one is like, and when you might reach for it.
Names, tasting notes and prices are working guides until the final teas are chosen after cupping.
Shop
Teaware
Pots, cups and tools that give whole leaves room, and make each cup a little slower and better.
Our pottery is thrown by hand in Southern Africa, so every piece is a little different. We will name the potter at launch.
The Farm · Thyolo, Malawi
Satemwa
A family tea estate in the Shire Highlands, run by the Kay family since 1923.
The estate sits between 1,000 and 1,200 metres up the slopes of Thyolo Mountain.
- Founded
- 1923
- Family
- The Kays, third generation
- Region
- Thyolo, Shire Highlands
- Altitude
- 1,000–1,200 m
- Makes
- White, green, oolong, black and dark teas
The estate
Satemwa is a family tea and coffee estate in the Shire Highlands of southern Malawi. It was founded in 1923 and is still run by the same family, now in its third generation.
Malawi was the first country in Africa to plant tea commercially, before Kenya.
The craft
Most of Malawi's tea is made for blending and sold in bulk. Satemwa makes whole-leaf orthodox teas in small lots, by hand, from delicate whites to oolongs and blacks.
Photograph to come
Photograph to come
Photograph to come
The land
With no cold season, picking runs all year on the slopes of Thyolo Mountain and peaks with the rains.
Satemwa also works with smallholder tea farmers in the hills around the estate.
Why we buy here
We wanted a partner who treats tea as a craft, not a commodity. We taste every lot before we buy it, and Satemwa's teas are the heart of our Malawi range.
Teas from Satemwa
About tea
Preparing Tea
Choose your tea. The steps change to suit it.
1
Warm the water
2
Measure the leaf
About one teaspoon for each 250 ml cup.
3
Steep
Give the leaves room to open. Use the timer below.
4
Pour
Every drop6:00
Ready when you are
Visit
Stockists
From spring 2027 you will find our tea in independent cafés, shops and hotels across Kent and London. Each one cares how a cup is made.
For cafés, shops and hotels
Serve Manna & Leaf
Tell us about your place and we will send samples from the first harvest.
Stories from the South
Journal
About tea
Tea in the South
How tea and rooibos are made and shared at home across Southern Africa, from the mountains of the Cape to the hills of Malawi.
Rooibos
Rooibos · red bush · the Cederberg
From the mountains
Long before it was a crop, rooibos was gathered wild in the Cederberg. People climbed the slopes to cut the fine, needle-like leaves, chopped them, bruised them with hammers and left them in heaps to ferment, then spread them out to dry in the sun. That is how the green needles turn red.
In 2018 the Khoi and San were formally recognised as the traditional knowledge holders of rooibos.
Beskuit
Beskuit · rusks · South Africa
Rooibos or regular?
Offer tea in a South African home and the question comes back: rooibos or regular? Rooibos is usually drunk just as it is, sometimes with honey or a dash of milk, and the kettle is rarely cold.
Tea time is rusk time. Beskuit, a hard, twice-baked rusk, often made with buttermilk, is dunked into the cup a little at a time.
Tiyi
Tiyi · tea · Malawi
The morning cup
In Malawi, where our tea grows, the day starts with black tea: strong, sweet and usually milky. A cup is offered to visitors as a welcome.
In markets and tea rooms it comes with mandasi, small pieces of fried dough, still warm.
Try it at home
South Africa
Rooibos and rusks
- Brew Cederberg Red with freshly boiled water for 6 to 7 minutes.
- Take it plain, or add honey and a dash of milk.
- Dunk a buttermilk rusk, a little at a time.
Malawi
A Malawi morning cup
- Brew two teaspoons of Highland Morning for 4 minutes, so it is strong.
- Add plenty of milk, and sugar to taste.
- Serve with mandasi or warm bread, and share the pot.
The Film
From Leaf to Cup
One minute, from first light on the tea hills of Thyolo to the cup in your hands.
0:00 / 1:00
Origins
Two places, one tropic.
Joining the range · North-Western Zambia
Forest Honey
Wild honey from the miombo woodland, cut from bark hives hung high in the trees. It is what we reach for instead of sugar.
A bark hive in the miombo. Nobody keeps these bees: the hive is hung, a wild swarm moves in, and the honey is collected once they have filled it.
- Origin
- Mwinilunga, North-Western Zambia
- Forage
- Miombo woodland, wild
- Hives
- Bark cylinders, hung in trees
- Harvest
- October to December
- Style
- Raw, coarse-strained
Instead of sugar
Six honest reasons we keep a jar by the kettle rather than a bowl of white sugar.
No. 01Sweetness
You need less of it
- Sweeter than sugar
- About three quarters
Honey tastes sweeter than white sugar, so a smaller spoon does the same work. Where a recipe asks for 100 g of sugar, start with 75 g of honey and taste before you add more. In a cup it is the same story: half a teaspoon is usually plenty.
No. 02Flavour
It tastes of somewhere
- Single origin
- Miombo blossom
Sugar is refined until it tastes of nothing at all. That is rather the point of it. Honey keeps whatever the bees worked, and in the miombo that means something dark and resinous, nearer treacle and burnt caramel than the pale syrup in a squeezy bottle. Like tea, it shifts with the season and the stand of trees.
No. 03Raw
Nothing cooked out of it
- Unheated
- Coarse-strained
- Pollen left in
Most honey on a shelf is heated hard and filtered fine so it stays clear and runny for years. Ours is warmed only enough to pour and strained through a coarse mesh, which keeps the pollen and the aroma. It will set and go grainy in the jar in time. That is a good sign, not a fault: stand it in warm water and it loosens again.
No. 04Baking
It behaves in the kitchen
- Keeps bakes moist
- Browns faster
Honey holds on to water, so cakes, loaves and flapjacks made with it stay soft for days longer than the same thing made with sugar. It does brown sooner, so turn the oven down a notch and start looking early.
No. 05A gentler lift
Slower than white sugar
- Lower glycaemic index
Honey sits a little lower on the glycaemic index than table sugar, so it lifts blood sugar less sharply. The gap is modest rather than magic. But if you are going to sweeten the pot anyway, it is the better of the two.
No. 06Keeping
The oldest thing in the cupboard
- Keeps indefinitely
- Good for a cough
Sealed honey does not really spoil; jars opened in ancient tombs were still honey. It is also the one kitchen remedy doctors still nod at — a spoonful in hot water does as much for a night-time cough as most things sold for the purpose.
How to swap it
Guide amounts · taste as you go1
In the cup
½ tspStir it in once the tea has stopped steaming. Boiling water flattens the aroma.
2
In baking
75 g : 100 gSwap by weight, three parts honey for four parts sugar, then taste the batter.
3
Hold back liquid
−2 tbspFor every 100 g of honey, take out about two tablespoons of milk, water or oil.
4
Turn the oven down
−10°CHoney catches colour faster than sugar. Lower the heat and check it early.
Honest about it: honey is still sugar — roughly four fifths of the jar — and a spoonful carries a little more energy than the same spoon of sugar. It is a better-tasting, better-behaved swap, not a health food. And never give honey to a baby under one year old.
Glass jar with a gold lid, made to be kept and refilled. Final artwork may change.
The jar
Raw, and barely touched
One honey, one woodland, one harvest. We will name the season on the label, the way we name the garden on a tin of tea.
- Weight
- 250 g
- Harvest
- Oct–Dec
- Texture
- Thick, sets
£14–18 a jar · guide price, to be set after the first shipment
Why Zambia
In Mwinilunga and Ikelenge, in the far north-west of Zambia, beekeeping is done the old way. A cylinder of bark is lashed together, hung in a tree deep in the woodland, and left for a wild swarm to find. There are no crops, no sprayed fields and no sugar feeding — only miombo trees for miles.
Honey from these hills has been bought and certified organic since the early 2000s, from thousands of smallholder beekeepers working the same forest.
Honey and the trees
A hanging hive is worth more standing than a felled tree is worth as charcoal, and it only works if the woodland around it stays put. That is the part we like: the honey gives the forest a job.
It is also why the jar will never be cheap. Harvesting means walking out to the hives, and the quantity is whatever the bees made that year.
Two ways to use it
The afternoon cup
Rooibos and honey
- Brew Cederberg Red with freshly boiled water for 6 to 7 minutes.
- Let it stand a minute, then stir in half a teaspoon of forest honey.
- A dash of milk if you like. No sugar needed; the rooibos is already sweet.
The morning one
Honey on warm bread
- Make a pot of Highland Morning, strong, with milk.
- Spoon set honey onto warm bread or a rusk so it softens as it sits.
- Eat it before the tea cools. That is the whole recipe.