TRFK 303/577
Another Kenyan 300-series clone, and one of the selections that appears in discussions of orthodox and speciality manufacture in Kenya rather than only CTC. The country’s speciality sector is small and recent, and it depends on being able to name a plant and a garden — which means reaching back into a clone register that was built for a commodity industry that never needed to.
Where it sits in the botany
TRFK 303/577 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 303/577. 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 303/577, trfk 303-577.
Where it came from
Selected by Kenya’s tea research organisation within its 300-series selections.
How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. The designation is genuine; selection year, parentage and traits were not verified against a primary source.
What the plant is like
Used where a Kenyan producer is making something other than commodity CTC. The interesting fact about Kenyan clones is not any individual one but that a whole national industry runs on a few dozen of them.
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 303/577
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 301/4
- 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.