Tea leaf picking
Picking is called the process of harvesting green tea leaves. Traditionally, this job is done by females. They move through the rows of tea bushes, gathering the top two leaves and a kidney that is not open. All seven to ten days, leaflets are gathered.
Wilting
Once the leaves are delivered by truck to the factory, they are set up for withering, located on the upper floors, allowing free circulation of the air flow between the leaves. Additional control of the drying method is needed in the rainy season, which is ensured by strong electric fans providing warm air. The drying process takes 8-10 hours.
Twisting
Sun-dried leaves are fed into ground floor curling machines. They influence the leaves ‘ cellular structure and remove natural juices and enzymes that give the tea a distinctive aroma. This step will lead in obtaining twisted leaves.
Fermentation
The next phase is called “oxidation” or “fermentation.” Once again, twisted tea leaves are placed on racks in a cool and humid atmosphere, giving them a coppery brown tint owing to oxygen absorption for nearly three hours.
Drying
Fermentation finishes at the point of the slow passage of tea through a warm air chamber. It’s called drying this method. The green leaves have now shrunk by about a quarter of their initial size, finding the familiar black color. The oxidation process is ignored in the manufacturing of green tea, and newly picked leaves are dried either by steam or by heating the container they are put in.
Sorting
The final manufacturing phase is sorting, or “screening,” where the tea is split into distinct varieties based on the tea leaf’s size. This is accomplished by passing through vibrating grids through the dried tea leaf. These varieties have little impact on tea quality, but in the process of sequentially blending the item for sale to a prospective customer, they are very essential.
After sifting, for delivery to the tea auction, each variety is weighed and packaged individually.
4.5 kg green leaf is needed to get 1 kg black tea.
