Tea Processing

Tea Processing Flow Chart

Explanation of how it's made.

Plucking

"plucking" refers to the manual harvesting of tea leaves from the tea plant. This process involves carefully selecting the young, tender leaves and buds from the top of the tea bush. Plucking is typically done by hand to ensure that only the highest quality leaves are collected, as these are considered to have the best flavor and aroma.

Withering

Withering is essential in tea processing, reducing moisture from freshly plucked leaves to enhance flavor and aroma. Leaves are spread for wilting and moisture evaporation, activating enzymes crucial for taste development. This process prepares leaves for further processing steps like rolling and oxidation, shaping the final tea product.

Bruising

After being withered, the leaves may be bruised to increase the level of oxidation further and release the leaf’s full flavor. This tea processing can be achieved by shaking the leaves in bamboo trays, tumbling them in baskets, or even by rolling, crushing, and tearing them by machine.

Oxidation

Oxidation involves exposing tea leaves to oxygen, leading to enzymatic reactions that alter their chemical composition. This process is critical in producing black and oolong teas, enhancing flavor, aroma, and color by breaking down compounds and creating unique taste profiles.

Fixation

Fixation, a crucial step in tea processing, halts enzymatic activity by applying heat to the freshly harvested leaves. This step is essential in preserving the desired flavor, aroma, and color characteristics of the tea. Fixation methods include pan-firing, steaming, or oven-drying, depending on the type of tea being produced.

Sweltering

Unique to yellow teas, warm and damp tea leaves from after kill-green are allowed to be lightly heated in a closed container, which causes the previously green leaves to turn yellow.

Drying

Drying is done to finish the tea for sale. This can be done in a myriad of ways including panning, sunning, air drying, or baking. Baking is usually the most common. Great care must be taken to not over-cook the leaves.

Biotech in the Tea industry

Tea has over 300 species due to frequent crossbreeding. The goal for most of the crosses is to create more caffeine along with better quality tea.

Micropropagation

Micropropagation: a really effect technique to mass produce genetic clones. It is really effective and has promise in finding more disease-resistant tea strains. This works particularly well with plantations with hybrid seeds from a plant that shows the ideal trait and uses tracking CDNA to synthesize and find certain gene families of areas of code.

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