How Tea Processing Takes Place

The tea plant camellia sinensis is a shrub with fragrant white flowers. But the beverage is made from internode, lanceolate leaves and buds. The cultivation takes place at various locations, heights and climatic regions. This produces leaves with vast variety of flavors, shapes and size. The amount of fermentation is responsible for production of green, white or black leaf.     

During the processing after the leaves are plucked the leaves are dried to reduce water content. This process is known as withering. The dried leaves are then rolled using machines or hand. This process enable the leaf to break its cells and release aromatic compounds.  

After rolling the oxidation stage takes over. The amount of oxidation is responsible for type of leaf that will result - green, white and black. The leaves are than fired without causing a burn. This step stops the oxidation process. Hence a varying degree of the oxidation can carried out as desired.  

For processing the black variant the leaves after being plucked are left to dry for a day. The process described above takes place. After the leaves have been properly oxidized to attain the right flavor and color the leaves are sent to the hot air chambers to fix the flavor and stop the oxidation process. By this time the leaves have taken the desired shape and attained the right flavor. Moisture content has come down to two percent and the leaves are ready for packing.     

I case of green tea withering may take place but the rest of the process is skipped. The leaves are subject to pan firing immediately in order to prevent oxidation. The final stage is to roll the leaves and dry them. The amazing health beneficial green tea is ready to be packed. Due to minimum process the green tea retains most of the antioxidants and ploy phenols which are good for health.  

Wagh Bakri is one of the largest tea processing and packing company in India. Like wise there are many such concerns in India that are responsible for delivering the brew to our doorstep. 

Tea Tasting an Art

Tea tasting is an important process in selecting and blending the finest leaves.  The sensory apparatus plays an important role in tasting and discovering the right leaves. On the contemporary times this has come to a level of art. The tasting is done by professional and talented people usually from old house involved in the trade of blending the leaves and selling them in the market.   

Albeit the tea leaves are derived from the same plant Camellia Sinensis the differing climatic conditions, soil, topography and way of cultivation results in the leaves acquiring properties that are vastly different whence compared with leaf grown in other regions.   

The taste buds play the most important role. The nose and the smelling power is as useful is selecting the aroma. Besides the flavoring characteristics and aroma the color of the leaves, size and the type is also taken into consideration. The process involves liquid teas which are tasted in a row one by one.     

After the tasting process over the leaves are carefully mixed to form a blend. The blend subscribes to taste, aroma and cost.  Hence the companies try to optimize on cost and flavor depending upon the targeted audience.  

Major tea processing companies in the world.

Tea is a shrub that is grown in areas with high humidity i.e. tropical or sub tropical areas, which are found all over the world. Teas whether green, blue, black, yellow, blue or white all the types find their origin in that one plant called Camellia Sinensis.

That one recreational drink that the whole world consumes is the hot beverage tea. The production and consumption is what is found throughout the world. And it wasn’t today that tea was found to be a drink that nearly the whole world consumes now the habit dates back to centuries. This is coming down the line from ages in the Oriental Realm. Since tea is such a good beverage, it is obvious that the market is expanded worldwide and has without any doubt increased over the years.

In today’s date, tea is grown in Asia and Africa on nearly 2.5 million hectares of land. China and India by far are the largest producers of tea, and most of the produce is consumed locally. Kenya this year was the largest exporter of tea. And all these continents and countries are said to have the best processing units. According to a website, all over the world, there are 7 large and successful corporations that dominate 90% of the global market.

As mentioned above the sector is actually dominated by a few major companies all over the world, and the international trade in this commodity follows a pattern. It lets the highest bidder in the International fair trade buy the choice product.

Tea cultivation depends on a number of factors and is the main base that determines that existence of the processing industry. It requires division of labor, proper climate and soil. Therefore Internationally there are some standards that the processing and packaging companies in the world have to follow. They are known as ‘standards for tea plantations’.

They are as follows-
1)    When working in a plantation estate of a company workers health and safety is a must.
2)    Child labor or forced labor is prohibited
3)    Workers have the rights to form unions and place their reasonable demands when required.
4)    The salaries should follow the rule of minimum wage effect.

Over the years the tea production has grown, and the major companies see that in near future this will grow even more. And hence all of them are working towards expanding their horizons and working towards acquiring more and more land so that the production from their company is the largest.

Even according to the stock market, it is predicted, that the tea production, consumption and processing will increase. This will happen if money in the hand of the common man increases so that he is willing to spend a greater amount on his health than what he currently spends.

The major tea processing companies in the world are continuously working towards acquiring the status of being the largest producers of the leaf. But this race continues as amongst the 7 companies, each is better than the other, and is continuously striving to be better, day by day.

Some of the Tea Majors are:


Lipton

Wagh Bakri

Tata Tetley

Dilmah

Twining Teas

Unilever

Kenya Tea Packers

The above companies are global while there are  many local concern nevertheless giants in their own rights.