Kenyan Nandi Hills Tumoi Co-op Purple Tea

S This exciting new tea is unlike any the world has seen before!  Selectively bred from wild mutations discovered in China and India, Kenyan Purple Tea is a new varietal created by a decades-long public/private partnership seeking to improve the productivity and profit of Kenyan tea farmers. This tea is different in two closely-related ways.  Kenya produces lots of tea – today it is the #1 cash crop, beating out coffee! – but it is not easy.  Much nearer to the equator than traditional tea-growing regions in India and China, estates must climb up to higher altitudes to find temperatures suitable for tea bushes.  Higher altitudes lead to higher ultraviolet radiation, and these plants adapt by shielding their leaves with deep purple anthocyanins, the same powerful antioxidants that give blueberries their famous health benefits.  In fact, an equal measure of Kenyan Purple Tea has 15x the amount of anthocyanins as blueberries (by weight – one cup of raw blueberries is much more than the ap