Three years after planting purple tea in his half acre, 36-year-old Antony Mugendi is now uprooting them.
The purple tea was said to be high-yielding and promised farmers higher returns compared green tea but he says he has not seen any economic benefit.
Due to the hype surrounding purple tea about economic returns and innumerable health benefits during its introduction, Mugendi was among the first farmers from Rukuuri Tea Factory to try it.
“Experts from the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya and Rukuuri Tea factory hyped about the economic gains from purple tea. They promised farmers high demand and ready market for this variety of tea owing to it health benefits,” Mugendi, who hails from Kithiruri-area in Kanja-Runyenjes sub-county, says.
He started growing green tea in 2005 one year after completing a diploma in building and construction. He says the small earning as a construction worker was meagre and could not cater for his needs and green tea earning plugged that hole.
He made good money from green tea bonuses and purchased a half acre land in 2012 on which he planted purple tea. He was moved by the fact that the production of purple tea variety is higher than green tea because annual production of one purple step produces approximately five kilogrammes compared to three kilogrammes for green tea.
Now it is over three years since Mugendi ventured into purple tea and has nothing to show of it. Lack of market for this particular variety forces Mugendi and other farmers with purple tea variety to mix it with green tea. “My expectation to fetch higher income to supplement the dwindling prices for green tea variety has disappeared,” he says.
Mugendi laments that the cost of maintaining this variety of tea is higher than that of the green variety because it is high yielding.
“Purple tea requires more fertiliser and manure compared to green tea variety that I put fertiliser once a year,” says Mugendi.
China and Sri Lanka are the world’s largest producers of purple tea and so far they are enjoying the global market.
According to TRFK, purple and green teas were expected to help Kenya reduce over-reliance on black tea. Purple tea takes three years to mature, it is drought-tolerant and has higher medicinal properties than green and black tea. It also produces oil for cooking, cosmetics and the pharmaceutical industry.
Rukuuri tea factory extension services assistance officer Eusephia Wanja says the factory does not have a processing unit for purple tea. Instead, it processes purple tea together with the green variety.
She adds that the factory intends to introduce processing units in the near future to attract more farmers into growing the purple variety.
Bowed down by lack of market for purple tea Mugendi has cut down his tea bushes and will remain put until the factory establishes a processing unit and improves on market.
“I will think of purple tea when the factory starts to buy and market purple tea separately from the green tea,” he says, adding that the government should build purple tea processing units or factories.
“Alternatively, the government should ensure that the existing factories should establish processing units to enhance their capacity to buy purple tea,” he advises.