Manufacturing of Tea-The Liquid Gold

Tea is cultivated in plantations. The ‘two leaves and a bud’ from all the terminal shoots are plucked and collected in gunny bags and transported to the top places of tea estates where the factories are generally located. Let us go through some brief story of manufacturing of various teas through different manufacturing processes.

GREEN TEAS: In short, the leaves are plucked and dried quickly to avoid fermentation altogether and also to ensure no chemical changes taking place in the leaves. These green teas are not very popular in India.

BLACK TEAS: We may say all the teas available in the market in packets with popular brands or sold as loose teas in whole sale and retail shops contain only one or more of the grades of black teas. The black teas are very popular and available everywhere in the tea market. They are plucked, withered, crushed, fermented and fired to finally sort into graded bulk teas.

OOLONG TEAS: These are teas harvested fresh semi fermented, dried and fired immediately so that the half baked tea aroma and characters are maintained to give a special taste. These have more of medicinal properties.

CULTIVATION:

All the agro climatic conditions and cultural practices have a say on the final produce in the field- green tea leaves. Just like that all manufacturing processes and conditions have great role in deciding the characteristics of final produce in the factory the black teas.

In general, the tea is manufactured by two well established processes: 1. Orthodox 2. C.T.C. The plantation will have factories of any one or two processes, depending on their requirements and conveniences.

WITHERING: Withering is a simple process that could be brought about by natural withering of green leaves to loose around 50 percentage of moisture in course of 10 to 18 hours, till the leaves become flaccid. However, withering is induced with the help of warm air circulating over the spread out green leaves for about 4 to 16 hours. (80- 85%RH, 68-82 deg. F)

TEA FERMENTATION:

The mass of the rolled leaves is laid in a cool, humid atmosphere to achieve optimum fermentation. The total time taken between the commencement of rolling and achievement of the optimum fermentation is to two to three hours, after which the enzymes must be destroyed. At the point of the time, the color of the leaf is bright gold.

TEA FIRING:

To arrest the fermentation, the mass of the leaf is exposed to hot air by passing through the chamber with perforated moving trays. The temperature of the air entering in to the chamber at its base ranges between 200 deg. F and 250 deg. F. (93 deg. C and 121 deg C). This process is called hot air blowing. The teas are taken in trays in furnace chambers and fired for about half an hour to reduce the leaf color to brown or black.

TEA SORTING/GRADING:

After the fired leaved have cooled to ambient temperature, it is ready for what is known as sorting or grading. The processed leaves are shifted through sieves and winnowed simultaneously. Now the graded teas are said to be factory bulked and ready for packing in plywood chests or gunny bags.

ORTHODOX PROCESS:

As the name denote, the process under the orthodox tea is an age old process. This involves after withering of plucked green tea leaves, a rolling or a grinding process to break the leaves, rupture the leaf cells for releasing the enzymes and twist or curl the leaves. It is achieved by rolling the leaves in a machine for one or two hours as if between the palms of human hands.


CTC PROCESS: CRUSHING, TEARING AND CURLING

Developed by MC. Kercher a planter in Assam (1934)

Crushing: After the withering process, the rolling process takes in turn with more severity than the orthodox process. This crushes the tea leaves in a way to release to enzymes for fermentation.

Tearing: After a brief conditioning, the leaf is passed through a machine comprising two steel cylinders( normally 30 inches long and 8 inches in diameter) with fine tooth like sharp ridges(8 to 10 ridges per inch of cylinder length and 50 or 60 ridges over the circumference).

The cylinders, with only marginal clearance between them, move in inverse direction at speeds of 70 and 700 rpm respectively. When the leaves are passed through two or three such machines consecutively, it is much reduced in size and most of their cells are ruptured. The object is to achieve accelerated as well as intensive fermentation.

Curling: Firing process make the teas into curled granulated form; sifting or grading are quite similar to that practiced under orthodox processes. The appearance of the final dry leaf is granulated and of a blackish or brown color, irrespective of the size or grade.

Tea of each grade is bulked, weighed and transferred to ply wood chests or bags for onward movement to markets.

HEALTHY CUP OF TEA:

You need to select some special teas and buy them for making special teas, when you are a tea lover. Your cup of tea should give a unique taste and happiness that lingers for a long time.


JUST GO :LEARN ABOUT A HEALTHY CUP OF TEA: ENJOY BUYING