Gandhi may have had varying views on the consumption of tea, but it is for a tea launch that I visit Satyagraha House, located in the serene suburb of Orchards, Johannesburg, where the lawyer-turned-activist and India’s Father of the Nation lived for two years at the beginning of the last century.
It was here that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi stayed until 1909 and developed Satyagraha, his political philosophy of passive resistance. He lived with his friend Hermann Kallenbach, a German architect who built the house in 1907.
The French travel company, Voyageurs du Monde Africa, bought Satyagraha House in 2009 and had it restored and opened to the public as a museum and guesthouse in 2011.
<div id="attachment_32795" style="width: 333px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32795" class="wp-image-32795" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Gandhi-house-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="323" height="242" />Satyagraha House (Photo by Methil Renuka)</div>
The house, with its strong South African design influences, retains the original thatched roof, chimney, a garden with indigenous plants, and a vegetable patch at the rear. Gandhi famously adhered to a strict vegetarian diet and an austere life, so the guesthouse conforms by serving only vegetarian food, and now bespoke tea.
Through exhibited photographs, plaques, panels, and popular Gandhi motifs such as the spinning wheel, cotton fabric and his circular glasses, the home is a visual essay of his domestic life in South Africa for those two years.
The cool weather and the tranquility here offers the perfect setting for a cup of tea, preferably under the two century-old trees in the backyard, appropriately named Pride of India.
It is in this backdrop you get five minutes with the lithe and effervescent Swaady Martin, the entrepreneur who in 2012 founded <a href="http://www.yswara.com/">YSWARA</a>, a home-grown African luxury brand now present in 17 countries. Soon after our meeting, Martin is jetting off to Paris for yet another launch of her teas.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/07/03/millions-online-designer-pockets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Millions Online And In Her Designer Pocket</a>
In South Africa, she has a factory at the Cradle of Humankind and a store at the culture-rich Maboneng Precinct. Martin calls her bespoke tea at Satyagraha House “lemon verbena chai”, sourced from natural ingredients and created by her.
Home for her is different places, but Martin has been living in South Africa for the last seven years. She was a regular visitor at Satyagraha House when it opened. That’s how the inspiration for the collaboration came about.
The 39-year-old, whose father is American and German and mother is French, Guinean and Ivorian, and who calls herself a citizen of the world, has a genuine interest in African culture, and a deep love for India.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_32794" style="width: 253px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32794" class="size-medium wp-image-32794" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Swaady-Martin-by-Gary-Stephens-243x300.jpg" alt="Swaady Martin" width="243" height="300" />Swaady Martin (Photo by Gary Stephens)</div>
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/07/07/first-africa-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">First Africa, Then The World</a>
“I am grateful that my DNA is mixed, as this is how I feel. I have an Asian soul,” says Martin, who confesses her immense love also for Gandhi.
“I have always been an admirer of Gandhi as the visionary and also as the loving revolutionary. And to be able to able to create this tea for Satyagraha House and for Gandhi is an immense privilege.”
It’s a happy coincidence; I tell Martin her brand YSWARA has an Indian ring to it and means God in Hindi. She agrees.
“It talks about the ethos of our company and the soulfulness that is really the thread of everything we do, that same soulfulness is also in Gandhi’s philosophy and the lifestyle that I relate to.”
Africa may be the largest exporter of tea in the world but Martin says the current entrepreneurial climate in Africa is tough.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/06/26/no-reservations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Future Of African Women In Art</a>
“In the context of Africa, it’s challenging to be an entrepreneur everywhere. Being a female entrepreneur in Africa is especially challenging, it’s not for the faint-hearted,” she says.
Despite the tepid environment, Martin continues with her journey of creating “extraordinary teas” that now form part of any visitor’s date with history in a heritage home in Johannesburg.
&nbsp;

“Being a female entrepreneur is not for the faint-hearted”

Tea is a global tradition, with countries all around the world having different values attached to the beverage. Tea is the world’s second most popular beverage, with different societies drinking it for pleasure, for healing purposes or to spend time with friends and family.
Yswara, a luxury tea company based in Johannesburg, South Africa, was launched in 2012. Its founder and CEO, Swaady Martin-Leke, a national of Côte d’Ivoire, hand-selects the tea from the various African countries, to incorporate into her company’s collection of 23 varieties of tea.
“I created Yswara out of the frustration of seeing one of Africa’s abundant commodities a victim of the commodity trap, [it’s] an international export with no to limited value-add done in Africa,” she says.
Yswara products aim to embody the spirit of Africa; they are all handcrafted and organically-inspired, with African provenance and cultural cachet.
<div id="attachment_1857" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1857" class="size-medium wp-image-1857" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Tea-selection-300x222.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="222" />Tea selection</div>
According to Martin-Leke, specialty tea is the fastest-growing segment within the industry, with gross margins above 60%. She says that consumers are increasingly looking for diverse origins and flavors of teas, and the niché gourmet tea market has only a few luxury brands. Most tea brands are in the premium and mass-market segments.
The growth of the Africa tea market will be driven primarily by an increasing consumer focus on health and wellness, and the continuing emergence of epicurean preferences in food and beverages.
“The gourmet tea market has been traditionally dominated by old French and English tea brands such as Mariage Frères, Dammann Frères, Fortnum &amp; Mason and Tea Palace. TWG from Singapore is challenging the French dominance over gourmet teas and demonstrated their increased popularity in both emerging and developed markets. TWG recorded $30 million in revenue in its first full year of operation after an investment of $10 million,” says Martin-Leke.
This curator of precious African teas wants to make her offering a prestigious product through educating customers on the quality and benefits of African teas, by creating an experience that includes African tea rituals, African-made tea paraphernalia and elegant packaging.
“I outsourced various suppliers such as Andrew Burke of Pure Publishing to work on the creative concepts thus providing Yswara with a brand identity. I also worked with Raynaldyne Molon, who has contributed to the development of international Nespresso, the redesigning the lobby for Victor Hugo and the restaurant company for L’Oréal Produits de Luxe and other clients. I also have great mentors who are experts in the field and guided me, such as Wilfried Guerrand, the head of Hermes Woman. I want Yswara to be placed next to Hermes soon, in the global markets,” she says.
Martin-Leke sources Yswara’s tea from South Africa, Malawi, Rwanda and Kenya with plans to source from Burundi, Cameroon, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. All her staff are women and the suppliers must be 75% female-owned or managed.
“The gourmet tea market in Africa will disappear if brands like Yswara and government initiatives in Africa, such as in Rwanda, don’t support the promotion of better quality tea. Africa will end up producing low-quality tea for mass consumption. Such teas are lower margins for our farmers,” she says.
The thirst for luxury goods in Africa requires in-depth understanding of the market’s mechanics, which differ from mass market businesses.
While Africa has more millionaires than Russia—the number of African millionaires rose 3.9% last year, faster growth than any region except Latin America—the majority of them shop in Europe for luxury goods because there is a very small market in Africa.
Africa’s rapid growth, booming cities and an aspirational middle-class are prompting luxury brands to enter untapped markets across the continent, although the difficulty of finding suitable sites for luxury stores means progress could be slow.
Building an African luxury brand has its challenges. Yswara hopes to be 100% made-in-Africa, by 2014. The main challenge is that Africa’s industrial setting is not accustomed to producing high-quality goods produced at a competitive cost, compared to China or India.
“We struggled to find suppliers who source or manufacture their products in Africa. Then, when world-class quality is met, the consistency is not guaranteed. For example, our tea tin manufacturer just closed this month and there is no alternative in sub-Saharan Africa,” she says.
Sub-standard quality affects a brand and makes it difficult to compete against international luxury brands.
“The cost of exporting outside of Africa is still too high. This is hampering growth of internet sales as well as opportunities to export out of Africa globally,” says Martin-Leke.
The South African specialty tea market only represents $250 million. With limited competition and an aggressive market entry strategy, based on opinion shapers and intensive education campaigns on tea quality, Yswara could grow revenues up to $8 million, or $12 million by year five of operations.
Yswara is targeting the international tea consumers, who are looking for a new tea experience and discover Africa as a tea region. Yswara will also expand globally from year four of operations [to Europe and the States]. We will start with online penetration and expand into direct and indirect retail.”
Packaging is a crucial element of a luxury brand. The brand stands for authenticity, refinement, timeless elegance and an Afropolitan lifestyle.
“The packaging is a key element of a luxury product; it is what the customer picks up. It is, together with the name, the carrier of the product’s luxury,” says Martin-Leke.
Yswara’s pay-off line is “Made in Africa for the World”, and the distinctive African wax Ankara print recalls the ambiance of West African culture.
Martin-Leke is already shipping her luxury tea around the world via her online store and online partners like africacandy.com.
“When going into the luxury market, push the barriers of excellence in Africa… and participate in making the continent a recognized destination for luxury goods rivaling its international counterparts. Africa is too often viewed as a place of low-quality goods and lack of refinement, while our thousands of years of culture, history, know-how and heritage demonstrate that we can do more than producing crafts and ethnic goods,” says Martin-Leke.

Tag: Yswara

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

“Being a female entrepreneur is not for the faint-hearted”

Queen Of The Luxury Leaf