Loose-leaf purple tea from the Nandi Hills of Kenya, in a gift tin with a hand-carved olive wood spoon.
Purple tea is a real thing, and a recent one
It is not a herbal infusion and it is not dyed. Purple tea is Camellia sinensis — the same species as green, black, white and oolong tea — but a distinct cultivar, developed in Kenya over roughly twenty-five years of breeding and released commercially only in the last decade or so. It is one of very few genuinely new things to happen in tea in a long time.
The purple colour comes from anthocyanins, the same class of pigments that make blueberries blue and red cabbage red. The leaves grow purple on the bush.
The lemon trick — try this once
Anthocyanins change colour with pH. Brew a cup of purple tea, look at it, then squeeze in some lemon juice: the liquor shifts from purple-brown to a clear pink almost instantly. It is not a gimmick added to the tea; it is the pigment chemistry doing exactly what anthocyanins do, and it is the same reason red cabbage turns pink in vinegar.
Children find it fascinating. So, in our experience, do adults.
What it tastes like, and the caffeine
Light and clean, with a woody, faintly plum-like note and very little of the astringency of a strong black tea. It is a gentle tea rather than a bracing one.
It is also low in caffeine — around half that of Kenyan green tea, which makes it one of the few real teas you can reasonably drink in the evening.
JusTea
The Bain family from Canada partnered with the Katah family and the Nandi Hills community to build Kenya's first small-scale farmer-owned artisanal tea factory. The company is verified by the Fair Trade Federation. The olive wood spoon in the tin is carved by artisan families from off-cuts left over from larger items — turning waste into income.
Brewing
Water at about 85 °C — not boiling — for three to four minutes. A teaspoon per cup. It re-infuses well.
Biohême
Criatura
Criatura
Biohême
