Question

Name and explain the steps necessary for the processing of tea leaves.

Answer 1

There are five stages of tea processing:

• 1. Weathering: Leaves are spread on the trays and hot air is blown over to remove excess moisture and are left for drying
  
• 2. Rolling: Tea leaves are pressed in rollers to break the cells open and extract juices for fermentation.
  
• 3. Fermentation: Carried out in controlled temperature. Fermentation develops color and flavour.
  
• 4. Firing: Fermented leaves are passed through oven
  
• 5. Sorting: Leaves are sorted by passing through different meshes and names are given according to the size of leaves like pekoe, broken orange, dust, etc.