At “MK”, we believe that every cup of tea needs to be enjoyed by you. However a lot of hard work goes into making your perfect cup of tea. We have attempted to show you in brief the entire manufacture process of tea, right from the plucking of tea leaves to the packing of the finished product.

Plucking

Is the art of breaking leaves from a tea bush. The perfect way to pluck is by getting a maximum number of 2 leaves and a bud, and at the same time minimizing damage to the tea bush.
 

Withering

Concept: Withering is the first and perhaps the most important stage in the process of Tea manufacture. Basically when fresh green leaf is plucked from a tea bush, it contains a high content of moisture. The withering process involves spreading of freshly plucked leaf in huge withering troughs, where dry air is passed through the leaf to reduce the moisture content to an acceptable level.
 

Process: During withering, Leaf is spread evenly on withering troughs, (the spread parameters depend upon many aspects, such as time of the year, quality of Leaf, trough size etc.) and ambient air is passed through the leaf spread from below. The aim of withering is to moderate the moisture content in tea leaf, so that the final product does not contain more than 3% of moisture (which is a fairly acceptable in the industry). Generally a 50-55% wither is done for a orthodox manufacture and a 70-75% is done for a CTC manufacture, (again these are indicative parameters and depend hugely on the weather conditions, rains, and the type of Tea). The spread of leaf is generally 10 kg/sq. meter (this depends upon the size and type of the troughs), and the general wither time per batch is approximately 12 – 20 hours (this again depends on the leaf standard, the type of manufacture, weather conditions and the desired requirement).

Output: During withering Leaf looses moisture content making it flaccid. This condition allows the next stage of manufacture to give the leaf the desired style and appearance.
 

Preconditioning of Leaf

Concept: Once the leaf has been withered, depending upon the type of manufacture that the estate wants to achieve, the leaf is then sent for the next stage, which involves rolling (incase the estate wants to manufacture orthodox tea or crushing, incase the estate wants to manufacture CTC teas). The basic concept here is to give the withered leaf, the desired style and make.
 

Process: Rolling, incase of orthodox manufacture involves the use of rolling tables, where the withered leaf is fed into. The main aim of rolling is to impart a twist to the leaf, which is one of the main characteristics of an Orthodox Tea. The rolling tables revolve continuously while applying various measures of pressure on the leaf. This cyclical movement gives the leaf its twist and make. The general pressure programme used by majority of orthodox manufacturers is a 30 minutes roll per batch, with first 10 minutes of no pressure, next 5 minutes of floating cap or light pressure, then 10 minutes of hard pressure, and the last 5 minutes again of no pressure (this programme however varies and depends hugely on the type and percentage of wither acquired)

For CTC manufacture, the withered leaf is passed through either a rotor vane shredder or a barbora leaf conditioner. Majority of the estates use a rotor vane machine. These machine comprise of sharp rollers, which crush the withered leaf into pulp. Depending upon the company policy and type of withered leaf, the leaf may be passed through 3 to 5 cuts.

Result: The preconditioning has imparted the make and style to the withered green leaf, making it ready for the next stage of process.
 

Fermentation (Oxidation)

Concept: Fermentation or oxidation of leaf is nothing but allowing the preconditioned leaf to come into contact with oxygen for a certain amount of time, before it is sent or the next stage, which is drying.
 

Process: here are many different types of fermenting techniques. However the most widely used techniques are floor fermenting for orthodox and CFM (continuous fermenting machine) fermentation for CTC. In floor fermentation, the preconditioned leaf is spread into thin layers on the fermentation floor and allowed to undergo oxidation. The fermentation floor has to be equipped with an adequate amount of exhaust fans and needs to be extremely clean, so as to facilitate hygiene.

In case of CFM, the preconditioned leaf is spread into the CFM belt, which moves very slowly. During this entire time ambient air of a certain temperature is passed through the spread in appropriate quantities, facilitating oxidation of the spread. During both processes, the temperature of the spread is continuously measured and maintained by the ground staff, so as to avoid over-oxidation or under-oxidation.

Result: It is the fermentation or oxidation that imparts the taste and smell, which is characteristic to Tea. The quality of the Tea cup depend hugely upon the type and duration of fermentation the tea has undergone.
 

Drying

Concept: When the fermented leaf ahs reached a desired stage of oxidation, it becomes necessary to arrest the process. This is achieved by drying. Drying is nothing but baking of the fermented dhool at extremely high temperatures to make it hard (this is the lat major process in the manufacture of tea)

Process: During the drying process, the fermented tea is loaded into the drying machine, which either be a conventional dryer or a fluid-bed dryer. Here the fermented tea is baked at very high temperatures, dehydrating it, so as to ensure that the final product (which
comes out of the dryer) contains about 3% of moisture.
Correctly withered leaf is normally fired at the following temperatures:

CTC: Inlet firing at 200 deg. F and Exhaust firing at 130 deg. F for approximately 20 minutes. (this again depends on various aspects right from withering to fermentation parameters used)

Orthodox: Inlet firing at 190 deg. F and Exhaust firing at 125 deg. F for approximately 24 minutes (this also depends on various aspects right from withering to fermentation parameters used)


Result: The fermentation process has been arrested, a nominal moisture content is retained and the tea gets its black appearance.

Quality Tea estates add one more process after drying, which is sifting or fibre removal for CTC and stalk removal for orthodox. Fibre or stalk is the bottom part of a tea leaf, which invariably comes enters the production process as it is plucked along with the leaf. The higher the fibre or stalk content the lower will be the market value for that tea. Removal of fibre or stalk is an expensive process process as it not only reduces the daily output of the finished product but also requires more man-days and thus more wages and other machinery related costs. However, if done properly, it will enhance the product quality, increasing its market value, thus offsetting the costs incurred.
 

Sorting

Finally the dried tea is then fed into the sorting machine, where it is sorted into different grades depending upon its size. The different grades for CTC are:
BOP – broken orange pekoe
BP – broken pekoe
PF – pekoe fanning’s
PD – pekoe dust
DUST - dust
(the secondary of each grade in CTC is usually marked with a suffix of 1 after the grade name)

And for Orthodox are:
TGFOP1, TGFOP, FBOP, GBOP, BOPF, OPD, OD

(Some estates use different nomenclature for different sizes, and derive their own grades, however the above are the standard grades used by majority of north Indian tea estates.)

Packing

The sorted product is ten sent for bulk packaging, where it can be packed in either Jute bags or Paper sacks, depending upon the company policy. The packed goods are then weighed and sent for transportation. This completes the entire manufacture process, which on an average may take upto 1.5 days time per batch of tea (right from plucking to bulk packaging of the finished product)
 

The bulk packets are then sent for value addition, where the tea is finally packed into consumer packs, or tea bag or pillow bags, an made available for sale to the final retail consumer. At “MK”, our 17 years of experience have led us to master the art of tea manufacture, which is evident from the quality of our final product, the prices we get in the market and most importantly the satisfied feedback, which we get from our consumers.

At the end, when we see you sipping that cup of “MK” tea, and enjoying it, we consider every minute, and every penny spent in making it a worthwhile investment.