By Antynet Ford

A Kirinyagi cooperative producing over 10 tonnes a week of rare purple tea during peak season is now targeting sales to Zimbabwe, with its high-health Kipute Gold tea brand, whilst spurning exports to the US, Europe and Middle East as restrictive and diminishing.

The 150 members of the Kirinyaga Purple Tea Cooperative collectively farm more than 30 acres of high-earning purple tea, which is much more profitable than traditional green tea. The coop is selling each kilogramme of processed purple tea at Sh2,000, due to its medicinal value. said the founder and secretary Mbugua Wangari.

Purple tea is rich in anthocyanin, a powerful antioxidant that helps ward off chronic diseases, although limited awareness continues to affect domestic uptake.

The Kirinyaga farmers started growing purple tea in 2014, but the tea authorities in were initially reluctant to grant them a licence to begin production, said Mbugua 

But in 2018, they began working with a processing partner. The out-growers now collect and deliver their purple tea leaves to Gatanga Industries in Murang’a, which processes and packages the tea on their behalf.

“Gatanga industries also labels the tea for us and is able to deliver to us a finished product ready for the market,” said Mbugua.

With its commercial brand Kipute Gold, short for Kirinyaga Purple Tea Gold, the cooperative is now producing over 10,000 kilograms of purple tea per week during the peak season during and after the rains, which is when the quality of the new leaves is highest.

“If you come to the farms currently, we are not picking purple tea because it is very sunny. The season begins around March when the rainy season starts. In a week, we at least send over ten thousand kilograms of tea to Gatanga industries where the processing and the packaging is done.”

The cooperative is also now working on improving its branding ahead of regional expansion.

“Before the season begins in March, we shall have rebranded our packaging. This is just to attract more customers in the market. We are also looking into getting more customers in Africa.”

“Marketing purple tea in the country is a big challenge but we are educating our people on the benefits of the tea and the results are encouraging.” But the cooperative is not interested in exporting beyond Africa.

“I always feel like the export market is hard to access because of the restrictions, especially the UK, where you have to be certified before selling. Here in the country and around Kirinyaga, people know the benefit of purple tea through the education that we give by our farmers in the cooperative and they buy.”

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“In future we are looking into exporting just in Africa. We are not interested in Europe, the USA or Middle East. We want to sell to Africans first. In the USA, for example, when we meet with people from there, and give them free samples, they never give feedback or contacts for markets in future. That is what makes it hard for us to access the market there.”

The coop is currently targeting Zimbabwe, although it is yet to secure a market there.

To reduce production costs, it plans to acquire its own small processing machines, and already covers all the costs of transport, processing, laboratory services and electricity. But marketing remains a challenge.

Kirinyaga and Murang’a is known for quality soils and favourable climatic conditions, said Mbugua, but similar conditions exist in other parts of the country too, and the Tea Directorate could be supporting marketing efforts. However, it is not.

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