In this study, a novel approach was taken to investigate plastic anisotropy in coarse-grained (CG) and ultra-fine grained (UFG) AA 5083 aluminium tubes. For this purpose, a parallel tubular channel angular pressing process was used to produce UFG tubes and the related data were collected using uniaxial tensile testing, microhardness measurements, the optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, and these data were then analysed. Less anisotropy was found in UFG tubes than in CG tubes for AA 5083 aluminium. The corresponding textures were consistent with the trends for anisotropy in mechanical properties. This paper is part of a thematic issue on Light Alloys.