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Purple Tea - Is This The Tea of The Future?

Purple tea from Kenya is a rare tea variety high in antioxidants. It has various health benefits such as reducing cancer risk, improving vision, lowering cholesterol and blood sugar. The purple color comes from anthocyanins, which also make it more astringent with an earthy flavor. Assam, India has potential to become the second producer of purple tea after Kenya. The clone originally came from Assam and wild purple tea bushes have been found in Assam. A senior scientist believes Assam is well positioned to produce this "tea of the future" due to its rich tea germplasm.

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Khawaja Zubair Ahmed
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59 views1 page

Purple Tea - Is This The Tea of The Future?

Purple tea from Kenya is a rare tea variety high in antioxidants. It has various health benefits such as reducing cancer risk, improving vision, lowering cholesterol and blood sugar. The purple color comes from anthocyanins, which also make it more astringent with an earthy flavor. Assam, India has potential to become the second producer of purple tea after Kenya. The clone originally came from Assam and wild purple tea bushes have been found in Assam. A senior scientist believes Assam is well positioned to produce this "tea of the future" due to its rich tea germplasm.

Uploaded by

Khawaja Zubair Ahmed
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Purple Tea - Is This the Tea of the Future?

Purple tea of Kenya is a very rare tea that has sweet notes with a pleasant lingering aroma. For
long, health experts and scientists have spoken about the health benefits of consuming tea,
especially green tea. Now, the focus seems to have shifted to a new variety bursting with
antioxidants.
What's so great about the purple tea? It has been found to have a host of medicinal properties,
is rich in anthocyanins and contains lower catechins. Purple tea has low caffeine content and is
high in antioxidants that provide anti-cancer benefits, improve vision, lowers cholesterol and
blood sugar metabolism. The purple colour comes from anthocyanins. These pigments also
make the tea more astringent. Purple tea has a more earthy, brisk and rustic flavour than
regular black tea. It has a unique thirst quenching quality and is known to reduce the risk of of
hypertension and cardiac arrests.
The good news is that India can soon become the second country in the world to produce it.
Assam can emerge as the only place in the world after Kenya to become a producer of healthrich purple tea, a senior scientist and tea expert in the Tocklai Tea Research Institute has said.
Currently, Kenya is the only country that produces unique purple tea which fetches three to four
times the price of black tea and has established both a domestic as well as export market.
Tocklai Tea Research Institute (TTRI)'s senior advisory officer (principal scientist) Pradip Barua
said, "Assam has tremendous potential to produce purple tea, as it is the tea of the future as far
as health benefits are concerned. Besides, such tea bushes are still found in thestate". The
clone TRFK 306/1 for purple tea of Kenya was originally from Assam and wild bushes of the tea
have been found in the hilly forested areas of Karbi Anglong district and Longai area of Cachar
district in Barak Valley while there was also possibility of its presence in some areas of Upper
Assam, he said.
"The germplasm collection at Tocklai has purple tea plants, commonly known as 'ox blood',"
Baruah said. "Assam is very rich in tea germplasm as it is the place of original tea variety and
wild tea plants are still available in the state'," the author of the book 'The Tea Industry of
Assam: Origin and Development'. The planting material for manufacturing purple tea was
selected from the germplasm stock of Tea Research Foundation of Kenya and was released as
TRFK 306 in 2011 to the planters for commercial cultivation, he said.

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