and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 20i 



NOTE ON TEA MANUFACTURE. 



The advantages of 



BRINGING THE LEAF IN HOURLY 



to the factory must be delineated. The pluck, 

 ers are all told off into groups of 8—10—12- 

 and a man is allotted to each gang to bring 

 their leaf in hourly to the factory where it is 

 weighed and inspected, under the tea house 

 Manager's supervision and the weight of leaf 



written down to the credit of the gang In 



gardens where tram lines run to all parts of 

 the estate the outdoor staff supervise weigh- 

 ments and quality and trollies run constantly 

 with light loads. For 



WITHERING 



we would postulate wide mesh continuous racks 

 or cloth-covered platforms. The former for 

 the ground floor areas, as not only affording 

 greater facilities for erection, but keeping 

 Ehem more open to inspection and light ; and 

 the latter for the upper stories. These wither- 

 ing appliances require great attention, as it 

 must be borne carefully in mind, that well 

 withered leaf always gives a darker liquor and 

 improved appearance; green rolling should 

 only be resorted to when unavoidable and as an 

 alternative to the opposite extreme Of 



ROLLING 



surfaces undoubtedly wood is the most effective, 

 especially the softer grained descriptions, but 

 the septic properties of all timbers render them 

 unsatisfactory for this purpose. What is required 

 is an unevenly wearing surface of material im- 

 pervious to water. The most suitable surface 

 that has come under our notice was one of equal 

 parts of coarse red sand and Portland cement ; 

 this had been in use for many years, and showed 

 no signs of polish, and in fact was as rough as the 

 day on which it was constructed owing to the 

 uneven wearing properties of its constituents. 

 The system of bedding the rolling tables in glass 

 has much to commend it in a sanitary aspect and 

 is being adopted by gardens aiming at perfection 

 in their equipment. The speeds at which rolling 

 tables are driven vary on different estates. Ex- 

 cess in speed especially in hard rolling tends to 

 defeat its own object, and should be avoided — 

 as it leads to what is known as polishing, or 

 slip ; a wide shallow well materially assists in 

 arresting this, but the tendency remains. 



It is in rolling that we come to the first vari- 

 ation that can be made, affecting the appearance 

 and charactor of the resulting teas. After each 

 period of rolling the contents of the roller, spoken 

 of technically as the roll, are passed through 

 or over some form of disintegrator to break up 

 the balls formed in that process. Undoubtedly 

 the best breaker in vogue for this purpose is the 

 short stroke horizontal jigger with baffle boards 

 twelve inches apart. The kicker rake seen in 

 this combination on some factories, is a distinct 

 advantage and should be adopted where feasible. 

 Rotatory separation has many disadvantages, 

 chief of which is difficulty of access for cleaning. 

 In this process of separation a portion of the 

 finest constituents of the roll are separated and 

 laid aside at ouce to colour, while the coarser 

 portions are put into another roller and the 



process continued. The object of this separa- 

 tion is to secure appearauce for the tine grades 

 of flowery and Broken Orange Pekoes. This 

 is sometimes carried on to a great extent, each 

 succeeding roll adding its quota to the tine stock. 

 When there is an undoubted shortage of a 

 demand for grades of standout appearance, this 

 may be of value ; and the teas thus manufac- 

 tured may secure an equivalent in price, to 

 compensate for the inevitable loss in strength in 

 the lower grades. In the coming season there 

 seems to be a 



l'KOMISE OF DEMAND FOR HIGH CLASS SHOWY TEAS 



and should this not be met with a sufficient 

 supply prices may reach expectations, and 

 equalise the serious impairing of quality 

 in Brokens and Souchongs. In separating 

 fine grades in this way the fact that it is 

 done at a sacrifice of the lower grades, should 

 not be lost sight of, and when the system of 

 hard rolling is resorted to, on a sound and 

 simple commercial basis, and a mark established 

 on these lines, it would be most unwise to at- 

 tempt any alteration. Many gardens might 

 make small percentages of fine teas, but few 

 gardens can command ninepence up for their 

 Souchongs, and after all it is the lower grades 

 that make or mar the garden average. A cur- 

 sory examination of sale lists will show this at a 

 glance. We now come to the 



QUESTION OF COLOUR. 



Rolls coloured in rooms flooded in water, in 

 rooms that are quite dry, in dark rooms, in light 

 rooms, in rooms subject to a strong current of 

 air, and in still rooms, are all s§en at the top of 

 the London market. The primary object in 

 having water at all in a colouring room, during 

 working hours, is the prevalent idea that the 

 presence of moisture means a lowering of the 

 temperature, and certainly if this view is correct 

 some of the colouring rooms that have come 

 under our notice should never exceed a tempe- 

 rature of Z9ro Fahrenheit; but this is not the 

 case. It does not at all follow that a moisture- 

 laden atmosphere is a cold one and the presence 

 of saturated cloths, and running water, are not a 

 sine qua non of success in the tea markets today. 



Water can only reduce temperature when 

 it evaporates or assumes the gaseous form, 

 as in so doing, it must absorb a definite 

 amount of heat from its surroundings, to com- 

 pensate for its increased bulk, from water to 

 vapour. With this principle in view powerful 

 fans are arranged to draw air through wet cloth 

 screens ; here the action is indirect, what is 

 actually done is a reduction of the temperature 

 of the screen and indirectly that of the roll. 

 What is required is to evaporate the moisture in 

 contact with the roll, as it is here that the ob- 

 jectionable temperature is created. It is an 

 active and tangible attribute of leaf in bulk to 

 heat, and pari passu this property is inherent 

 in each individual leaf. The air passing through 

 a colouring room, should be large in quantity, 

 low in temperature, and not saturated with 

 moisture. The combination of fans drawing air 

 through saturated double or treble pigeon- 

 holing walls seems best to answer this purpose. 

 The air is cooled by contact with the wet 



2Q 



