VANCOUVER, Canada – A Vancouver company is launching a new purple drink they hope will be a hit with tea-lovers. Purple tea is brewed with leaves from the same type of plant green tea comes from, but this new variation has more health benefits and is hardier against drought. Of course, the tea, when steeped, is purple.
It’s the result of years of hard work, says Boaz Katah, a tea farmer from Kenya who developed the unique tea with Vancouver-based company, JusTea.
“In Kenya, [tea] processing is usually done in huge multinational facilities. We are one of the first that started making tea in tiny kitchens and cottages.”
Katah and his wife, Jamilla, were in Vancouver this week before they headed to the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas.
The pair started developing the purple tea plant in 2013 by breeding traditional tea plants with other strains with the goal of enhancing its health benefits and drought tolerance.
The result is a violet-coloured tea that is rich in anthocyanins, a type of antioxidant also found in blueberries and acai berries. Purple tea tastes similar to green tea but has less caffeine.
The Katahs now employs more than 200 people, who still dry and prepare the tea in cottages. It’s been a busy year, preparing for the launch of their product in North American market, said Katah.
“Our capacity right now, we can confidently produce about two tonnes of tea [per month] right now.”
Paul Bain, whose family owns JusTea, says he is hosting the Katahs in Vancouver because he wants customers to understand the direct connection between the tea they drink and the work the Katahs do on their farm.
That kind of fair-trade-type relationships between farmers and distributors are more common in the coffee industry but are still rare in the tea world, said Bain.
“For tea, its still very far behind. We want to make sure tea drinkers know the farmer that made that cup of tea is earning a fair wage and they know the name of the farm behind it.”
Wanyee Li
