THE TEA PLANT 



Grades of 

 Tea. 



Black. 



CAMELLIA 



THEA 



Manufacture 



almost entirely cover the field. It is not proposed to describe here the 

 older methods of tea manufacture by hand, since these can be found in 

 many of the books already referred to, but we shall limit attention to 

 those at present in vogue. [Of. Watt, Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc., 1907, 

 xxxii., 90-3.] 



Grades of Tea. The tea-leaf when plucked may be manufactured into 

 various classes of tea. Black Tea, at present, absorbs almost the whole 

 of the leaf produced in India. The preparation of Green Tea has made, 

 however, considerable progress in the past five years, largely owing 

 to the invention of special machinery for its production and partly to 

 the depressed prices obtainable for Black Tea. An effort has recently 

 been put forth to introduce the manufacture of Oolong teas into India, 

 but so far with no success. A small quantity of Brick Tea is made by 

 a few estates in Darjeeling and Kumaon, for the Tibet and Bhutan market. 

 " Letpet " or Pickled tea is prepared in Burma and on the hills lying 

 between that country and Assam. These various grades of tea may be 

 separately dealt with : 



1. Black Tea. withering. The leaf, plucked as already described, 

 is brought in from the estate, and immediately spread as thinly as possible 

 in a cool and shady house on trays of hessian, bamboo, or wire netting to 

 " wither." In the colder hill districts this operation is nearly always 

 conducted in lofts, situated over the factory itself, which can be closed 

 and warmed with hot air. In the plains similar lofts, fitted with 

 fans to draw the air over the tea, are sometimes used, but the general 

 consensus of opinion seems to be that when such lofts are used to shorten 

 Quality affected the withering by raising the temperature above 80 F., the quality of the 

 tea invariably suffers. In the districts producing the best-grade tea 

 (Upper Assam) the withering is almost entirely carried on in houses open 

 to the outside air. Lofts in which hot air can be introduced are, however, 

 very useful in ensuring that the withering is completed within a reasonable 

 time, for the leaf must wither until it is flaccid, and if this takes too long, 

 the tea is always inferior. At a temperature of 80 F. the ideal time 

 required for withering is about 20 hours ; if delayed beyond that time a 

 lower-grade tea is almost inevitable. If not flaccid at the end of the 

 withering time it is a common custom to allow the leaf to remain for thirty 

 hours, when it must then be taken away and rolled. The process of wither- 

 ing is a very important one in tea manufacture ; if well carried out, the 

 amount of tea ferment (enzyme), which afterwards causes the change in 

 the leaf termed " fermentation," nearly doubles in quantity during the 

 operation ; the soluble matter in the leaf considerably increases as well 

 as the tannin, to which the pungency of the finished leaf is due. 



Roiling. When, by withering, flaccid leaf has been produced, it is 

 ready to roll. This operation was formerly carried out by placing the 

 withered leaf on a table, where it was rolled to and fro under the 

 pressure of the hands, till the juice was pressed out on to the surface of 

 the leaf, and the material well twisted. As the pressing out of the juice 

 from the cells into contact with the air is the essential part of the process, 

 it was soon apparent that a machine might be devised which would bring 

 about this result and allow ot a much larger amount of leaf being treated 

 at once. Hence during the last forty years there has been invented a 

 constant succession of machines. The earlier ones, by trying too closely 

 to imitate hand rolling, were many of them cumbrous and unwieldy, but 



230 



by Withering. 



Enzyme or 

 Ferment. 



Essential 

 Feature. 



