Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared in hot boiling water with curved leaves of the Tea Plant. It has a cooling slightly bitter & flavor taste. Tea was primarily originated in China as a medicinal drink but it became popular in Britain during 17th century A.D. British introduces Tea in India to compete with Chinese monopoly on Tea.
Tea has variety of health benefits. It reduces cardiovascular disease and promote oral health, reduces blood pressure and controls weight. It improves anti bacterial and antivirasric activity and provides neuroprotective power.
Tea is an evergreen plant. Tea plants are propagated from seed and cutting. It takes about 4-12 years for a Tea plant to bear seeds and about three years before a new plant is ready for harvesting. High quality Tea are cultivated 4900 ft above sea level as they grow slowly and acquire better flavor.
A Tea Plant can grow to the height of 16 metres if left undisturbed, but cultivated plants are generally pruned to waist height for ease of plucking. Short plants even bear more new shoots which provide new and tender leaves and increase the quality of the Tea only 1-2 inches leaves of mature plant are pigged. These buds are called flushes. New flushes grow every 7-15 days during the growing season. Without careful moisture & packeting the Tea may become unfit for consumption due to growth of undesired and bacteria in it.
Tea can generally be divided into categories based on how they are processed. There are at best 6 different types of Tea: White, Yellow, Green, Oolong, Black and post of which the most commonly found in the market are Green, White, Oolong, and Black.
Tea leaves are packed in Paper Bags and in often containers such as tea chest some varieties of whole teas such as rolled gun powered are sometimes vacuum packed in aluminized packaging for storage and retail as they can resist humidity.
CTC TEA (Indian Make)
Green tea leaves are handpicked by an experienced worker from sloped hills (ranging about 1000ft -4500ft above sea level) and is collectively carried into nearby factories for manufacturing.
Firstly the Green leaves are brought washed and dried. Secondly the machine churns the leaves into green paste and then they are put on circular belt system towards a rolling machine to give it a round shape. The round shaped greenish tea is then put in controlled environment and moisture is applied over it through heavy fans. This process of applying moisture is called floor fragmentation.
After this, greenish round shaped tea turns into brown round shaped tea. Then it is carried to the dryer through a circular belt system. It is ten heated to about 140c -150c for about 15 to 20 min. After this process, tea attains black colour and is hardened. This hardened tea is called black bulk tea.
The bulk black tea is further sorted as per primary grades and secondary grades professionally called (1) BOP (2) BOPSM (3) BP (4) OF (5) PD (6) CD (ARE COMMONLY USED GRADES).
Teas are now packed as per requirement or request and given lot numbers for identification which can also be compared to general batch numbers.
The packed tea is now ready to be put into the line of consumption through different sources.
NOTE: This process belongs to typical Indian style black tea production. Quality and quantity depends on weather and machines.
Generally we place complain to our dealer about detoriate quality of tea supplied. In some cases it is seen that tea preparation has an important role in making a good cup of tea.
We have tried hard to also train our retailers and also further to consumers about the perfect preparation of tea, there are almost 100's of recipe of tea preparation. Here are some mostly used recipes for a hot refreshing A PERFECT TEA CUP, AFTER ALL TEA IS MOST WIDELY COMSUMED LIQUID IN THE WORLD AFTER WATER.
Water is the most basic ingredient for the preparation of tea, water should not be ironated nor distilled preferably boiled normal tap water are widely accepted by an experienced tester as because water may differ from place to place which may also greatly affect the taste/color of the tea.
Buffalo milk is preferred over cow or powder milk.
Minimum boiling time 5 minutes.
Sugar to taste.
Black tea (Indian Style) (for 1 cup).
As directed take a cup of milk and half a cup of water bring it to full boil and then add 2.5gms of tea(a tea spoon full) and boil for 4 min stir, sive and add sugar to taste your tea is ready.
Green tea (Indian style) (for 1 cup).
As directed take one and a half cup of water and bring it to full boil then add 2.5gms of tea (a tea spoon full) and let the mixture to soak for about 5 min (not in boiling condition) then strive and add milk and sugar to taste.
