Fifth milestone of Tea Journey-maceration

After withering three types of tea can be made-
1. Green Tea- Unfermented
2. Oolong Tea i.e, semi fermented tea
3. Black Tea- Fully fermented- Orthodox and CTC tea

For black orthodox and CTC tea. rolling and CTC methods are employed for maceration.

Rolling Machine-

In CTC process maceration of leaves are carried through CTC i.e. Crushing ,tearing and curling of withered tea leaves. This process exposes the disintegrated cellular organelles and cell sap to oxygen. Mixing of chemical constituents and enzymes in the presence of oxygen impart unique characters to tea through fermentation which is an oxidation process.

CTC Manufacturing Process-

Sometimes, after CTC the fine meshed grains are passed through rotary ghoogies. Ghogies helps increasing the size of broken grades and fibers embedding. Appearance and size are improved through this process but quality of liquor deteriorates.

Ghoogi Process for improving the appearance and size of grades of tea-

Quality of grades is checked at every stage-

After this process leaf fine mesh of different sizes are collected and carried towards next process of fermentation.

Fourth milestone of Tea Journey- Withering

Withering makes or mars the tea.  Withering is very important process and expensive as well in terms of space and time required. Trough withering is generally employed for its economy. Mostly during rainy season withering is closely controlled through hot or dry air flow to speed up the process.

The main purpose of this process is to bring down moisture of leaf between 74 to 83 % and it takes 15-20 hours.This process makes the leaf flaccid as loss of turgidity which further helps in rolling,cutting and shaping. As a moisture loss cells wall breaks down with degradation of chlorophyll  and oxidation reaction starts.Some chemical compounds degrade into volatile compound which helps in developing aroma and flavour. Any neglect at this stage will result in inferior tea in subsequent process.