In a tea plantation, we expect to see green.

The tender green of young shoots. The deeper green of mature leaves. Bright green after rain, more muted under a dry sun.

And yet, some tea plants break this continuity abruptly.

Their buds may be red. Their young leaves take on purple, garnet, or purple-red hues. In some cultivars, this coloration can be intense enough to almost entirely mask the green beneath.

These leaves are not diseased.

Nor have they begun to oxidize on the plant.

They are simply revealing another facet of Camellia sinensis chemistry.

To understand it, we must look at a particularly fascinating family of plant pigments: anthocyanins.

1. A Tea Leaf Is Never Simply “Green”

When we look at a fresh leaf, its color seems obvious.

It is green because it contains chlorophyll.

That is true, but incomplete.

A leaf contains several families of pigments and colored compounds at the same time. Some are highly visible, while others remain hidden by the dominant pigments.

These include:

• chlorophylls, responsible for much of the green color;
• carotenoids, associated with yellow or orange hues;
• flavonoids;
• and, in some tea plants, significant amounts of anthocyanins.

It is the balance between these different pigments that determines what our eyes perceive.

When a young leaf accumulates enough anthocyanins, purple or red can become visually dominant.

2. What Are Anthocyanins?

Anthocyanins belong to the large flavonoid family.

They are water-soluble pigments found in many plants.

They contribute the red, purple, blue, or purple-red colors of flowers, fruits, and leaves.

Black grapes, blueberries, blackberries, red cabbage, and eggplant all owe part of their color to this family of molecules.

The tea plant also possesses the metabolic pathways needed to produce them.

In ordinary green-leaved cultivars, anthocyanins generally remain much less visible.

In certain cultivars known as purple-leaved or purple-budded, however, their accumulation becomes significant enough to clearly change the plant's appearance.

3. Why Do Some Tea Plants Produce More of Them?

The first answer lies in genetics.

Not all tea plants express the genes involved in pigment production in the same way.

Some individuals, natural mutations, or selected cultivars have a particularly pronounced ability to accumulate anthocyanins in their young shoots.

This is why “purple tea” does not refer to a different botanical species.

It is always Camellia sinensis.

But certain genetic backgrounds direct the plant's metabolism differently.

Breeding programs have therefore been able to preserve and develop lines that strongly express this trait.

Purple-leaved cultivars are now found in China, Japan, India, Kenya, and other producing regions.

4. Purple Color Is Most Visible on Young Shoots

In some tea plants, the phenomenon is spectacular in spring.

Buds and early leaves appear red or purple, while older leaves gradually turn green again.

This change reminds us that a leaf is not a chemically static object.

As it grows, its composition changes.

In several studied cultivars, the anthocyanin concentration decreases as the leaf matures, while its green appearance becomes more dominant.

A single branch can therefore simultaneously show:

This transition, however, depends on the cultivar: some retain their purple color more than others.

5. Can Light Make a Leaf More Purple?

Yes, in some cultivars and under certain conditions.

Genetics determines much of the potential, but the environment influences its expression.

Light is one of the best-studied factors.

Experiments conducted on tea plants with purple young shoots have shown that high light intensity can promote the accumulation of anthocyanins.

Conversely, shading has been shown to reduce this accumulation.

The plant obviously does not “color” its leaves for our visual pleasure.

These pigments are involved in complex physiological mechanisms and may play a role, among other things, in the plant's responses to environmental stress.

6. Purple May Also Play a Protective Role

Young leaves are particularly vulnerable.

Their tissues are still developing, and their photosynthetic apparatus is not necessarily as mature as that of older leaves.

Anthocyanins can absorb some of the light.

Several studies on plants, including tea plants, suggest that they may thus help limit some of the effects of excessive light on young tissues.

However, it would be too simple to reduce their function to that of a “botanical sunscreen.”

Anthocyanins are involved in several biological pathways, and their accumulation results from interactions between genetics, development, and the environment.

7. Purple Leaf and Oxidized Leaf: They Are Not the Same

It is easy to confuse them.

In the Tsuru No. 039, Dedicated to Oolong Processing, we saw that some leaves can develop red or browned edges as oxidation reactions occur during processing.

Here, the mechanism is different.

A young purple tea leaf can be purple while it is still on the tea plant.

This coloration comes primarily from the pigments present in its tissues.

A red-brown color that appears during processing, however, may result from enzymatic changes in various compounds in the leaf.

Two phenomena can produce colors that look similar to the eye while having very different biochemical origins.

8. Does the Tea Still Look Purple in the Cup?

Not necessarily.

Several changes occur between the living leaf and the infusion.

Harvesting, withering, heat, oxidation, drying, and finally infusion change the expression of the pigments and many other compounds.

The infusion of a tea made from purple leaves can therefore have unusual hues, sometimes red or purplish, but it does not necessarily reproduce the exact color of the fresh leaf.

The precise anthocyanin composition and processing parameters play an important role.

The color of an infusion can therefore never, on its own, tell the whole chemical story of the leaf.

We had already explored this pitfall in the Tsuru No. 029, Dedicated to the Color of the Infusion.

9. Do Anthocyanins Also Change the Taste?

Color is not the only dimension affected.

Recent research on purple-leaved teas shows that their flavonoid composition differs from that of many green cultivars.

A 2026 study published on several accessions ranging from green to dark purple found, among other things, a link between certain anthocyanin derivatives and the red color of the infusion, but also with increased bitterness and astringency in the samples studied.

Caution is nevertheless necessary.

The taste of a tea is never determined by a single family of molecules.

Catechins, amino acids, sugars, volatile compounds, caffeine, minerals, and products formed during processing all contribute to the final perception.

A tea rich in anthocyanins therefore does not have a single or predictable taste simply because its leaves are purple.

10. “Purple Tea” Is Not a New Major Family of Tea

This is an essential distinction.

Green, white, Oolong, black, or dark describe families of tea primarily defined by their processing.

The purple characteristic concerns the raw material first and foremost.

A leaf from a purple cultivar can theoretically be processed using different methods.

We can therefore find green teas with purple leaves, black teas from purple cultivars, or other experiments depending on the region and producer.

Simply saying “purple tea” therefore describes a characteristic of the tea plant more than a universal method of production.

It is a bit like confusing a grape variety with the method used to make the wine.

11. Are All Purple Teas Identical?

No.

And that is precisely what makes the subject interesting.

There are several cultivars or lines capable of producing purple shoots.

They do not have exactly the same genetics, the same pigment concentration, or necessarily the same aromatic profile.

The level of coloration can also vary depending on:

• the season;
• the age of the leaf;
• light intensity;
• growing conditions;
• the cultivar;
• and probably different physiological interactions that are still being studied.

The term “purple” therefore encompasses realities that are much more diverse than a single color.

12. A Spectacular Color Does Not Guarantee Quality

The same reasoning applies to tasting.

A purple leaf can catch the eye and make a batch exceptionally photogenic.

But the quality of the tea always depends on many factors:

• quality of the harvest;
• health of the leaf;
• terroir;
• season;
• mastery of processing;
• storage;
• freshness;
• balance in the cup.

A poorly processed rare cultivar will remain poorly processed tea.

Conversely, a perfectly green leaf can produce remarkable tea.

The color of the raw material is a piece of information. Not a ranking.

13. The Fascinating Case of Cultivars Selected for Their Color

For a long time, many peculiarities of tea plants were observed directly in gardens before being understood at the molecular level.

A branch with an unusual color could catch a grower's attention.

If this trait persisted and the plant produced interesting tea, it could be propagated, studied, and eventually selected.

Modern tools in genetics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics now make it possible to go much further.

Researchers can compare the expression of thousands of genes between green and purple leaves and observe which metabolic pathways are particularly active.

Purple then becomes more than a color.

It becomes a gateway to the inner workings of the tea plant.

14. Why Are These Leaves of Such Interest to Researchers?

Because they provide a particularly visible natural model.

When the concentration of certain pigments changes significantly, the plant shows it directly through its color.

Researchers can then compare:

• purple and green leaves;
• young and old leaves;
• different cultivars;
• different light levels;
• gene expression;
• metabolite concentrations.

This helps to better understand the biosynthesis of flavonoids, as well as how a plant adapts its metabolism to its environment and developmental stage.

15. One Plant, Radically Different Appearances

There is something deeply revealing about these purple leaves.

Since the beginning of the Tsuru Collection, we have regularly returned to the same idea: the great families of tea all begin with a single plant species.

Camellia sinensis.

But this species contains considerable diversity.

Leaf shape, size, hairiness, chemical composition, shoot color, cold resistance, yield, potential aromas: no cultivar is ever exactly the same as another.

This is why speaking of “the tea plant” in the singular is convenient, but can hide immense diversity.

Purple leaves may be one of their most visible manifestations.

Key Takeaways

• Some tea plants naturally produce purple or purplish young leaves.
• This coloration is mainly due to a high accumulation of anthocyanins.
• Anthocyanins belong to the flavonoid family.
• The cultivar's genetics play a major role.
• Light and other environmental factors can influence their accumulation.
• In some cultivars, the young leaves are purple and gradually become greener as they age.
• A purple leaf on the tea plant should not be confused with a leaf reddened by oxidation during processing.
• Anthocyanins can influence the color and sensory profile of the tea.
• A "purple tea" is not a new processing category comparable to green tea or black tea.
• A high anthocyanin content does not automatically mean that a tea is better, healthier, or of higher quality.