Black Tea

What is Black Tea ? .The term Black tea is given to the most popular tea drunk today and refers to the manufacturing process. The tea leaves start by either being plucked from the tea bushes by hand or mechanically harvested. The best leaves are the top two leaves and the bud of any new growth.

Tea Plucking

Tea Plucking

Tea is grown in rows of tea bushes and the workers would traditionally walk through the aisles of tea picking the leaves and placing them in containers worn on the persons back. The lady pictured here is from Kericho Tea Estate which is situated in the Rift Valley in Kenya. You will notice that unlike in India there are no shade tree's.

Tea Harvesting

Tea Harvesting

The Tea is then collected and brought into the central factory of the estate. Here the green tea leaves go onto a weighbridge for weighing. This gives an early indication of the resulting crop production.

Tea Withering

Tea Withering

Next the tea enters the TEA FACTORY . The tea is placed in withering troughs where the moisture content is reduced to the level required for manufacture. An alternative way is to place the tea in withering tanks.

Tea Cutting

Tea Cutting

Next the withered tea leaves are passed along conveyor belts which have metal detectors in place to reject any ferrous materials. The leaves are metered and guided into a steady flow towards the cutters. A 15'' rotorvane pre-conditions the leaves for C.T.C ( Cut Tear Curl ) cutting machines pictured.

Tea Fermentation

Tea Fermentation

Batch Fermentation takes place in tanks and you can see here the difference in the colour of the leaf between the freshly cut green leaf and the dhool ( term for the tea leaf during fermentation with a dark copper colour ) in the left hand row of containers.

Tea Drying

Tea Drying

Next the tea leaves passed by conveyor for drying. The machine pictured here is a fluidised bed dryer. You can begin to see here the colour of loose tea as it appears when you open a packet at home. This is Black Tea .

Tea Sorting and Grading

Tea Sorting and Grading

Tea from the dryers pass through this fibrex machine which removes any last bits of fibre from the tea before the tea passes through for final grading. The Teas are seperated into the primary grades and the lower grades for bulk packing.

Tea Packing

Tea Packing

The final tea packing then takes place. These pictures are taken in 1988 and you can see tea chests were still being used. In the background you can see the more modern method of packing which is a thick paper foil lined bag. Today practically all teas come in these bags.

On tea and coffee dot com we have a wide range of Black Teas on our stock lists both as loose leaf teas and tea bags.