Across the picturesque highlands of Kenya’s great Rift Valley, fields of tea shimmer in shades of emerald, lime and moss under the equatorial sky.
Some of these fields though, are now darkened with patches of purple. The purple comes from leaves with high levels of anthocyanins, natural pigments that also give cranberries, blueberries and grapes their colour.
Tea Tuesdays is an occasional series that explores the science, history, culture and economics of this ancient brewed beverage.
The purple leaves are Africa’s newest and most intriguing tea. At the moment, they are being made into a handful of different styles. The most popular, according to Alistair Rea, owner of the online retailer What-Cha, is a delightful hand-rolled oolong, a traditional Chinese tea. There’s also a simple steamed green tea; the freshly plucked leaves steamed before rolling to stop any oxidation — and a subtle, high-end silver needle white tea with spiky, airy buds that have a fuzz of fine, silvery hairs.
Each tea carries grassy, plummy aromas, and its steeped liquor, with a slightly purple tinge to the colour.
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Kenya is the world’s third-largest producer of tea, and nearly all of the almost 1 billion pounds produced in 2014 were a brisk black tea processed by the Cut-Tear-Curl, or CTC, method.
Unique flavours
Kenya’s industry has some 560,000 small farmers who bring their plucked leaves to the 60 or so factories run by the Kenya Tea Development Agency for processing. These account for about 60 per cent of the country’s production, with large-scale producers like Finlays and Unilever making up the remainder.
But the CTC market is saturated, global competition stiff and auction prices are volatile. At the end of 2014, prices were down to near-historic lows as record harvests left a glut on the market. As part of a long-term project to diversify the industry, the state-run Tea Research Institute spent 25 years developing the purple variety, officially named TRFK 306.
Along with carrying those anthocyanin pigments, the new hybrid is high-yielding, contains properties to make it resistant to drought, frost and natural pests according to the Tea Research Institute. In July 2011, it was released for commercial production.
The first batches of Kenyan purple tea arrived at American tea shops like Phoenix Tea in Burien, Wash, in 2012. While purple tea still isn’t widely known or coveted, Phoenix co-owner Virginia Wright says its quality makes it more than just a novelty. As pleasing as the unique flavours might be, TRFK 306 was never developed for its taste.
Instead, TRI breeders were most interested in creating “a high-value medicinal tea product.” A number of scientific studies done inside and outside Kenya on purple tea suggest its anthocyanins may help protect against neuro-degenerative diseases and cancer.
“Anthocyanins have capacity to scavenge for free radicals and thus are good antioxidants,” says Stephen Mbuthia, a biochemist at Egerton University and lead author of a recent study.
Seduced by the potential of TRFK 306, many farmers ripped out their old bushes and replanted with the new variety. At the moment, only one of KTDA’s factories is able to handle the new leaves. But purple tea accounts for only a tiny fraction of the factory’s annual output.
While farmers close to the factory can deliver their freshly plucked purple leaves there, growers elsewhere in Kenya are generally forced to have theirs processed along with standard black CTC tea.
Identify market
That could soon change. The KTDA plans to set up smaller processing plants to handle the first crop of purple tea that farmers planted in 2011 that’s now maturing.
Kenya’s purple tea advocates say there may be other, perhaps better, ways of drawing out the leaves’ riches. “Tea giant Finlays has planted some purple tea in its fields but is still trying to identify a market and customers before releasing anything.
“This is a new product and we do not yet know whether its value will be as a beverage in its own right, or as an ingredient,” says Ashleigh Kahrl, Finlays Head of Corporate Communications.
Kenya had better hurry, though, if it wants to take a firm hold on this potentially lucrative market.
At the end of December, Pradip Baruah, the principal scientist at India’s Tocklai Tea Research Institute, said that wild purple tea bushes had been recently found growing in Assam region, in northeastern India and had tremendous potential for cultivation.
India produces 2 1/2 times more tea than Kenya. But more relevant is the industry’s diverse styles of manufacturing, producing such refined, celebrated orthodox-style teas as Darjeeling. India has the means to kick-start a full-blown purple tea craze.
While you can’t order a cup of purple tea at your local Teavana yet, you can get the leaves from select specialty tea shops and online retailers. But don’t be surprised to see it in supermarkets in the near future. Just call this one supertea.
The writer is a freelance writer and author. His book Darjeeling: The Colorful History and Precarious Fate of the World’s Greatest Tea will be published in May by Bloomsbury.
