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Tea

What Is Tea?

Tea is a drink made by infusing dried chopped leaves in boiling water.
There are more than 1 500 different teas to choose from, grown in more than 25 listed producer countries all around the world.

How Is Tea Grown?

Tea grows best in regions which enjoy a warm, humid climate with a rainfall measuring at least 100 centimeters a year. Ideally, it likes deep, light acidic and well-drained soil. Given these conditions, tea will grow in areas from sea level up to altitudes as high as 2 100 meters above sea level.

Tea varies in flavor and characteristics according to the type of soil, altitude and climate conditions of the area in which it is grown. The way it is processed also affects the flavor and characteristics, as does the blending of different teas from different areas.

Tea is grown on estates or small holdings.

Under modern cultivation, tea is grown as a bush approximately one meter high - for the ease of plucking - grown from cuttings or clones. These are nurtured in nursery beds until ready for planting out.

Young bushes are planted approximately 1.5 meters apart in rows with a distance of 1 meter between each row. In higher altitudes, these rows follow the contours of the hills or mountainsides to avoid soil erosion. In some of the higher altitudes, terraces are built, again to avoid soil erosion.

The bush is then trained into a fan shape with a flat top, called a plucking plateau about 1 by 1.5 meters in area and takes between 3 to 5 years to come to maturity. Before the first plucking, the bushes are severely pruned by a method known as "lung" pruning.

The bushes are plucked, mostly by hand, every 7014 days. Altitude and climate conditions of the growing area are the two deciding factors in the re-growth period. A tea bush grown at sea level will replace itself more quickly when plucked than a tea bush grown at a higher altitude, where the air is often cooler. Only the top two leaves and a bud are plucked from the sprigs on the plateau.

How Is Tea Made?

The plucked leaves are collected in a basket or a bag, carried on the back of the plucker, and when this is full it is taken to a collection point where the plucked leaf is weighed before being taken to the factory for processing, or "making" as tea manufacture is known in the tea trade.

If pluckers are harvesting an area near the factory, they will take their plucked leaf directly to the factory for weighing.

On an estate, each plucker is credited with their own weights of tea for subsequent payment.

A skilled plucker can gather up to between 30 to 35 kg of plucked leaves a day, sufficient to produce about 7,5 kg to 9 kg of processed black tea.

As black tea has the major share of the tea market in terms of production, sales and amount drunk, most factories produce black tea.

At The Factory

On arrival at the factory, the plucked leaf is spread on vast trays or racks, normally placed at the top of the factory, and are left to wither in air at 25 - 30° centigrade. The moisture in the leaf evaporates in the warm air, leaving the leaves flaccid. This process can take 10 to 16 hours, depending on the wetness of the leaf. Some factories will gently hasten the process with the aid of warm air fans.

The broken leaf is laid out either in trays or in troughs in a cool, humid atmosphere for 3 - 4 hours to ferment, or oxidize, and is gently turned every so often throughout the period until all the leaves turn gold russet color and fermentation is complete.

After fermentation, the leaf is dried. This is done by passing the broken fermented leaf through hot air chambers where all the moisture is evaporated, and the leaf turns dark brown or black. The black tea is ejected from the chamber into chests. Next, it is sorted into grades or leaf particles, by being passed through a series of wire mesh sifts varying in size, into containers, before being weighed and packed into chess or "tea sacks" for loading onto pallets.

Factory tea-tasters will taste the finished make to ensure that no mistakes have been made during the manufacture, or that the tea has been contaminated by anything within the factory. Samples of the make are sent to selling brokers worldwide. All brokers will evaluate the tea for quality and price, reporting back to the estate or co-operative, so that the tea can be sold to the best advantage.

After each make, the tea is washed from top to bottom to ensure that the completed make does not contaminate the next make of tea.

The Blending Of Tea

It is the job of the tea blender to ensure that his company blend meets all the criteria. To do this, the blenders and buyers and all tea tasters will taste the teas bought at an auction on arrival at the tea-packing factory, to reassess that they have not been contaminated or damaged whilst in the warehouses awaiting the auction.

During the course of the day, a blender can taste between 200 - 1000 teas, adjusting his recipe to ensure that the companys' brand remains constant. His findings are fed into a computer and the requisite numbers of sacks and chests of the different teas are taken from the company storeroom, opened and conveyed into a large blending drum. This rotates, mixing all the teas together. When the blending is complete, the blend is ready for packaging into packets or tea bags.

Packaging Of Tea

For loose-leaf products, the blended tea is put into a hopper, which feeds a machine that carefully measures and dispenses the right amount of tea into the packet, filling it and sealing it, and then weighing it as a final check. This is all done automatically in seconds.

Tea bag tea is fed into specially designed machines, which fill thousands of tea bags, whatever their shape, each minute. Each bag usually contains at least 2,27grams of tea and is sealed, then packed into cartons.

Distribution

The tea packaging companies sell their tea to the supermarkets and other retailers using a national accounts system, through wholesalers and even by a team of salesmen calling on corner shops.
Your tea reaches the supermarket or shop shelf between 20 to 30 weeks after it has been plucked on the estate or small holding.

Benefits Of Tea

Research has indicated that drinking tea as part of a healthy diet and life style can help maintain a healthy body, including a healthy heart.
Tea is rich in antioxidants.

Green and Black Tea offer the same health benefits. Drinking 4 cups of tea is re hydrating.

Tea contains fluoride, which provides us with 70% of the fluoride needed.
Tea without milk and sugar has virtually no calories.

Rooibos Tea is naturally caffeine free, no calories, no need for sugar. It also has 50% more antioxidants than traditional green tea.

How To Brew The Perfect Cup Of Tea

Use a good quality loose leaf or bagged tea.
This must be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature.
Always use freshly drawn boiling water.
In order to draw the best flavor out of the tea, the water must contain oxygen. This is reduced if the water is boiled more than once.
Measure the tea carefully.
Use 1 tea bag or 1 round teaspoon of loose tea for each cup to be served.
Allow the tea to brew for the recommended time before pouring.