TRFK 301/4
A Kenyan clone from the 300 series, the band the country’s better-known selections sit in — including the purple TRFK 306/1. Kenya’s clonal programme is one of the largest and least discussed in tea: an industry built almost entirely on selections made in one country in the second half of the twentieth century, distributed through smallholder cooperatives, and sold onward with no plant name attached to any of it.
Where it sits in the botany
TRFK 301/4 is recorded under Camellia sinensis var. assamica, the variety group one level above cultivar. It is associated with Kenya, which is where it was selected or is most widely planted rather than the only place it grows.
Registration code: TRFK 301/4. A breeding or registration code identifies the selection in an institutional register and is often the name a grower uses when the trade name is not.
Also transliterated as: trfk 301/4, trfk 301-4.
Where it came from
Selected by Kenya’s tea research organisation within its 300-series selections and released for commercial planting.
How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. The designation is genuine; the selection year, parentage and specific traits were not verified against a primary source.
What the plant is like
Assam-derived material for year-round plucking under equatorial high-altitude conditions. As with all Kenyan clones, its output almost always reaches the drinker as an unnamed component of a blend.
What it is usually made into
The categories this cultivar is typically processed into. It is a statement about common practice, not a limit — processing decides the category, and a cultivar can be taken down more than one route.
- Black tea — Tea taken deliberately through full enzymatic oxidation, giving the dark leaf, amber-to-red liquor and malty or brisk character most Western drinkers think of as simply 'tea'.
Teas in the catalogue made from TRFK 301/4
Other cultivars in Camellia sinensis var. assamica
- Assam indigenous jat
- Benifuji
- Benihikari
- Benihomare
- Benikaori
- Betjan
- Camellia sinensis var. assamica
- East African seedling tea
- Fengqing Da Ye
- GMB 7
- Kiara 8
- Lingyun Baihao
- Manipuri jat
- Menghai Da Ye
- Mengku Da Ye
- Miang landrace
- PH1
- Shan Tuyết
- Sri Lankan seedling tea
- Tai Cha No. 8
- TRFK 303/577
- TRFK 306/1
- TRFK 31/8
- TRFK 6/8
- TV1
- TV23
- TV25
- Yinghong No. 9
- Yunkang 10
- Yunkang 14
- Yunnan Da Ye Zhong
- Zi Juan
- Zi Ya
Sources
- TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ
This page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis throughout. No breeding register or institutional record stands behind the account above, which is why the origin note carries its confidence in the open rather than reading as a citation.