DEATH ANNOUNCEMENT
NAOMI CHEPKEMOI LANGAT
“Mama Chai”
18 April 1951 – 29 June 2025
Kericho tea farmer who raised six graduates on two acres of green leaf
It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of NAOMI CHEPKEMOI LANGAT, tea farmer and elder of the ACK Litein Mothers' Union, on 29th June 2025 at Kericho County Referral Hospital. Widow of the late Philip Langat; mother to Emmanuel, Joyce, Nancy, Wilson and others; mother-in-law to many; grandmother to fourteen. Family and friends meet daily at Litein, Kericho, at 5.00 pm. Cortege leaves Kericho Funeral Home on Wednesday 9th July at 8.00 am for a funeral service at ACK Litein Church, followed by burial at the family farm. M-Pesa Paybill 601884, Account MAMACHAI. Rest in peace, Mama.
Across the hills above Litein, the tea bushes are so perfectly trimmed that you could lay a ruler on them. Most of those two acres belonged to Naomi Chepkemoi Langat, who plucked them at dawn for forty-six years with a basket on her back and a Bible in her apron pocket, and who always said that tea teaches patience better than any sermon.
She was born in Litein in 1951, the youngest of seven children of a Kipsigis farming family. She attended the local primary school until her father fell sick, after which she left to help on the farm. In 1974 she married Philip Langat, and together they planted their first tea bushes on a two-acre plot they bought from their savings. When Philip died in 2001 she carried on alone, plucking, weighing and delivering the leaf to the Kenya Tea Development Agency factory, singing hymns the whole way.
Her green leaf paid for six children's education. Her eldest son is now a physician in Nairobi, one daughter is a secondary school principal, another is an accountant, and the youngest is a university lecturer in Eldoret. Mama Chai, as the neighbours called her, insisted on one rule: every child must be able to cook, pluck and count before they could leave home.
She was an elder in the Mothers' Union at ACK Litein and led the congregation's Tuesday prayer group for twenty years. Her chai, boiled with plenty of milk and a pinch of ginger, was famous for converting cautious visitors into loyal friends. She loved a good laugh, her radio tuned to Kass FM, and teaching her granddaughters to pluck two leaves and a bud.
She died at Kericho County Referral Hospital on 29 June 2025 after a brief illness.
She leaves six children and fourteen grandchildren.
“Tea teaches patience better than any sermon.”