Kenyan black tea

Where it grows

The districts recorded against this tea, all of them in Kenya. Elevation is given as the band the district is recorded at, not a measurement of the garden this leaf came from.

• Bomet — 1700–2200 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

• Kericho — 1800–2200 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

• Kisii — 1500–2100 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

• Limuru — 2000–2400 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

The plants it is made from

Cultivar is the level below the variety group: a named selection of the tea plant, propagated as clones from one parent. Most consumer writing stops at the country and the category, which leaves out the layer that decides how the leaf behaves before anyone picks it.

• TRFK 6/8 — Camellia sinensis var. assamica

  Vigorous large-leaf material suited to Kenya’s equatorial high-altitude conditions and to CTC manufacture. Kenya plucks all year, so the traits that matter are steady productivity and resilience rather than an early flush.

• TRFK 31/8 — Camellia sinensis var. assamica

  Kenya’s reputation for consistency rests on clonal planting of a small number of cultivars like this one — an agronomic decision that shapes what the world’s teabags taste like.

• TRFK 301/4 — Camellia sinensis var. assamica

  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.

• East African seedling tea — Camellia sinensis var. assamica

  Genetically varied field by field and bush by bush, deep-rooted from seed, long-lived, and uneven in shoot length and flush timing in a way that makes a fine plucking standard expensive. Much of it is old.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Withering — Reduces water content, softens the leaf for later handling, and permits early enzymatic and aromatic development.
2. 2. Rolling and shaping — Ruptures cell walls to expose leaf juices, and forms the leaf into the shape it will hold through drying and storage.
3. 3. Oxidation — Allows polyphenol oxidase to act on leaf polyphenols after cell rupture, converting them into the larger coloured compounds that give oxidised tea its colour and body.
4. 4. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.

The route it is made by

The steps above are what happens; this is the named production route they belong to, with the other teas made the same way.

• CTC black tea — The orthodox route with one slot filled by a different machine, and every other decision in the route reorganised around what that machine needs.

  Where it is practised: Assam, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Sri Lanka's low grades, Indonesia, Argentina, and the great majority of Indian domestic production. Nearly every teabag in the world contains tea made this way.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

The compounds that substantially decide what this tea is: Tea cream, Theaflavins.

• Withering
  • creates Geraniol
  • creates Linalool
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Theasinensins
  • raises Methyl salicylate
  • raises Nerolidol
  • raises Soluble sugars
  • lowers cis-3-Hexenol
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • lowers Leaf lipids
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Oxidation
  • converts Carotenoids
  • converts Catechins
  • converts ECG (epicatechin gallate)
  • converts EGC (epigallocatechin)
  • converts EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate)
  • converts Epicatechin
  • converts Linalool
  • creates Beta-damascenone
  • creates Beta-ionone
  • creates GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Tea cream
  • creates Theaflavins
  • creates Thearubigins
  • raises 2-Phenylethanol
  • raises Geraniol
  • raises Nerolidol
  • lowers Anthocyanins
  • lowers Theogallin
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

History

Tea was planted in Kenya from 1903 and the industry expanded enormously after independence, particularly through smallholder cooperatives rather than estates. Kenya is now among the largest exporters in the world, almost entirely in CTC form for blending.

TeaHQ synthesis — TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 98–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Boiling and decoction

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

• Mug infuser brewing

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 96–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Mug infuser basket

  Open in the brew assistant

• Tea bag brewing

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 96–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

• Chai preparation

  1.5–3 g/100 ml · 98–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Tea strainer

  Open in the brew assistant

Common mistakes

• Steeping it as long as an orthodox leaf, which makes it harshly astringent
• Judging it black when it was built for milk

When the cup goes wrong

Written against black tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 19 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• My chai catches on the pan or boils over — A scorched note runs through the finished drink, or the pan foams over the moment your back is turned.
• My chai is harsh and drying rather than rich — The drink is strong enough but unpleasant with it: a rough, drying grip on the tongue and a flat cooked note, rather than the round sweetness a good chai has.
• My chai tastes of hot spiced milk rather than tea — The drink is pleasant and sweet and the tea is nowhere in it — no colour to speak of, no briskness, and nothing that would tell you tea had been involved.
• My iced tea has gone cloudy — Tea that was clear when hot turns hazy or milky once chilled.
• My iced tea tastes watery once the ice melts — The tea is good for the first mouthful and thin by the bottom of the glass.
• My milk curdles or separates in the tea — Flecks or threads appear when the milk goes in, or the surface breaks into small islands, and the drink looks grainy rather than smooth.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• Assam vs Kenyan black tea — Two assamica blacks that supply most of the world’s teabags, from opposite hemispheres and opposite growing conditions. Between them they account for a large share of what ends up in a teabag. Put the two side by side
• Kenyan purple tea vs Kenyan black tea — The same country, and about as far apart in the cup as two teas from one origin get: a commodity CTC that most of Britain drinks daily without knowing it, and a pale, tart speciality from a purple-leafed cultivar. Put the two side by side

Where this tea is drunk

Documented practices that name this tea. Each page describes what is done and by whom, and separates what is recorded from what is repeated.

• British everyday tea drinking — Strong black tea with milk, made in a mug from a bag, drunk throughout the day — a domestic and workplace habit with its own etiquette, and almost nothing to do with afternoon tea.
• East African chai customs — Tea boiled in milk rather than water across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, spiced on the Swahili coast, cardamom-heavy in Somali practice — produced by the region and drunk from the grades that never leave it.
• Egyptian shai: koshary and saidi — Two Egyptian methods with the same leaf and opposite results — steeped and clear in the north, boiled hard and almost syrupy in the south — served in a glass with a great deal of sugar, in a country that drinks tea constantly and grows none.
• Irish tea drinking — Among the heaviest per-capita tea consumption anywhere, a stronger blend than the British one, a genuine north–south brand loyalty between Barry’s and Lyons, and tea as the fixed accompaniment to a death in the parish.
• Pakistani tea customs — Tea boiled entirely in milk with no water at all, green cardamom qahwa in the north-west, and a country that drinks tea in enormous quantity while growing almost none of it.
• The tea auction system — The mechanism through which most of the world’s tea is still priced — invented in London, exported to the producing countries, and now run from Mombasa, Colombo, Kolkata and a handful of other floors that almost no tea drinker has heard of.
• The tea break — Industrial Britain’s tea break, the trolley and the tea lady who pushed it, the round that governs who makes it, and a workplace institution that was fought over, legislated around, and then quietly dismantled by the office kitchen.

Guides covering this tea

• Tea and global commerce
• Where tea prices are actually set