Highland growing regionsKenya · Collection 01
Purple Tea
Camellia sinensis · TRFK 306/1
A tea that announces its difference before it reaches the cup. Kenyan purple tea brings together decades of agricultural research and the conditions of the equatorial highlands.
Character
Fresh red fruitGentle tanninClean, bright finishA modern cultivar, rooted in a mature tea landscape.
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Provenance
Developed through conventional breeding at Kenya’s Tea Research Foundation, TRFK 306/1 contains elevated levels of anthocyanin pigments that give young leaves their purple appearance.
It is cultivated across several Kenyan highland districts. The exact expression changes with field, harvest and processing; provenance belongs to each lot, not to the cultivar name alone.
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Why it matters
Purple tea offers a route toward differentiated value in a sector sustained by hundreds of thousands of smallholders. Its future depends on quality, transparent processing and whether added value reaches origin.
Provenance note
This profile describes the wider origin and crop. It does not represent certification or a named supplier relationship.
- Kenya National Research Fund
- Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis