VISIT TO A TEA FACTORY

VISIT TO A TEA FACTORY

Most of us drink cups of tea everyday but not many of us know how tea is processed in a tea factory before it reaches us in a tin or a pack. During my recent visit to the “God’s own country” Kerala in south India, I had the opportunity of visiting various tea gardens in the hills of Munnar and Thekkady , I could not resist the temptation of knowing first hand all about tea and the only way to do this was to visit a Tea Factory. Most of the tea factories in this part of the country arrange for paid visits and we visited one such factory of The Tropical Plantations Limited at their Periyar Connemara Estate. There were lot of visitors like us, some from as far as Germany and France.
The guide, a very amiable person knowing English and French in equal measure took us to the auditorium and gave a presentation about the Company in general and Tea Processing in particular. There are different processes of tea making. This factory follows CTC (Crushing, tearing and Curling) process. The other is leaf twisting process. The salient features are:-

1. Plant life could be more than 300 years.

2. About 4300 plants are planted per acre.

3. Harvesting is done by cutting /plucking or both. Harvesting is done for a few weeks in a year. Fresh leaves are only harvested. The older the plant, the better is the tea. Old leaves are not plucked and used for tea making. The harvested leaves are then taken to the factory for processing.

4. The process starts with withering (moisture evaporation about 20%), shredding, crushing, fermentation, ball breaking, drying, cleaning, grading (grains and dust), winnowing, final cleaning and packing. The rates vary according to the grades.

5. The recovery rate is just 24 % i.e. if 100 kg of leave reach the factory for processing only 24 kg is final product.

6. The correct way to prepare tea is to first boil the water, put 2.5 grams of tea for a cup, wait for 5 minute and add sugar and milk to taste.

I do not claim to have learnt all about tea manufacturing but these are the basics. It is a pleasure to walk through the tea gardens, the green spread all over.

We also visited coffee plantations, rubber plantations, spice gardens, and must admit that the hills, forests, rivers, lakes, canals, back waters, beaches and last but not the least the people of Kerala are all enchanting. No wonder they call “God’s Own Country”


Hari Lakhera Delhi, Feb 5, 20