This archive report was first published on 10 July 2020.
Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) urged farmers to diversify their tea business by growing purple tea seven years ago. Robert Murimi, a 76-year-old farmer from Nyeri County, heeded the call and cleared 20,000 green tea bushes on his four-acre farm in Ndumanu, Mathira constituency, to make way for the new variety.
Today, Murimi is a licensed purple tea producer and is set to start processing, packaging, and exporting the produce under his company, Horera Forest Edge Tea Company.
His farm has enrolled 86 purple tea farmers from Ragati catchment area in Mathira and Kirinyaga County, for which he will be processing the tea. He has been selling his produce to Ragati Tea factory, fetching Sh16 per kilo, the same price as green leaf tea.
However, in the international market, purple tea fetches up to Sh2,000 per kilo, compared to Sh280 per kilo for green tea. Murimi is now banking on processing to increase his income.
"I received the machine from the Purple Tea Association of which I am a member and I have all the licenses to process. This will earn me more income," Murimi said.
According to Boaz Kiter, the chairman of the Purple and Specialty Tea Association of Kenya, the constraint in registration and licensing of cottage industries has hindered farmers from embracing orthodox tea farming.
"Unlike the price hype we hear every day, purple tea is yet to pick up and its farming is yet to become profitable because of lack of reliable market," Kiter said.
