Chitou & Co

Chitou & Co began in 2018 as Aissatou El Feky Agne's answer to a specific gap she had noticed after relocating from France, where she worked as an IT consultant, back to Dakar for the same firm's local office: quality loose tea in Senegal was scarce, and what did exist was mostly limited to a handful of major international brands sold at a premium. She built the business as an online concept store rather than a physical shop, framed explicitly around unwinding — "chic and cosy moments" is the site's own line — and stocked it with dozens of organic teas spanning black, white, green, rooibos, and herbal infusion categories, a catalog the company describes as the largest for organic tea in West Africa.

The range extends past standard categories into more specific formulations, including a blend for expectant mothers, alongside chocolate sourced from an Ivorian chocolatier and tea accessories sold as companion pieces rather than afterthoughts. The company has also worked with the Association of Handicapped People of Ouakam to produce its packaging, a concrete detail in a business built mostly around retail rather than manufacturing.

By the early 2020s, delivery had extended past Dakar to Mauritania, Ivory Coast, and Benin, carrying a Senegalese-founded specialty tea catalog into neighboring markets. It remains, by its own account, online-first — a Dakar-founded response to a gap in West Africa's specialty tea retail that its founder built without waiting on a storefront.