Integrity Score 200
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MANUFACTURING PROCESS
OF TEA
Using only the new leaf (bud and leaves below it) ensures a tea with flavour and character.
Tea leaves and bud, two each.
Tea is hand-picked from the bushes.
wilted
Once there, the tea leaves are put in large withering troughs with heated air blowers to reduce moisture content. Flaccid leaves result. Physical withering occurs. The partial disintegration of cell walls between cells (cell wall permeability) is required for later steps of synthesis. The plucked leaves are chemically wilted for a minimum of 6 hours.
Lessen the leaf's wetness
Hot or cool air blowing the leaves
a. b
Rolling breaks apart leaf cells and combines enzymes with leaf chemical components. Various rollers are used. The first roll is pre-conditioning. By gently expressing leaf juice onto the surface of the twisted particles. These liquids evaporate on the particles, darkening tea. The following rolling should fully destroy the leaf cells. During rolling, friction creates heat, which must be kept below 35C to avoid chemical and enzymatic reactions.
To mix up the leaf's chemical components.
A roller that applies pressure on leaves in stages.
In order to encourage oxidation or fermentation, the leaf is stretched out after sifting through the Roll Breaker. After the leaf is split in the roller, fermentation begins. Polyphenols are oxidised when cells split, prompting enzymes to interact with other cellular components. Fermentation produces flavour compounds.
This permits critical chemical reactions to occur in the macerated leaf.
A roller that applies pressure on leaves in stages.
Drying
Firing kills enzymes and removes most leaf moisture. During the burning process, undesired low boiling compounds are removed, revealing more desirable high boiling compounds.
To stop tea fermentation and chemistry.
The fermented leaves are dried hot.
Planning
The charred tea leaves are sorted through meshes to determine particle size. This helps separate teas into dust, pekoe, BOP, etc. grades.
To grade tea leaves.
The tea is filtered via various mesh sizes.
Aesthetics &
The Teamaker and expert tasters next assess the tea's leaf, smell, cup colour, and character.
To assess the tea's taste and flavour.
Examine the brewed tea leaf and the liquid colour to evaluate it.