From the farm to your tea cup

Ever wondered the process it takes for the tea you buy to get to you? There are many different brands of tea in various shops and other outlets near you, and everyone who consume tea has things that they look for when buying their favorite. It could be the taste, the quality, the size of the tea particles and so on. Tea is grown in different parts of the world, such in Africa, Asia and South America are some of the renowned tea growers. Research finds tea as the second most consumed drink after water in the world. This shows that global demand for tea has skyrocketed over the years. In Africa, Kenya is the biggest producer of tea, combined with other countries they try and meet the global demand.
Just like any other plant, tea requires particular conditions in order to grow well. According to infonet-biovision.org, tea requires an average annual temperature of 18-20 degrees Celsius, an average daily amount of sunshine of 4 hours a day, and an optimum of 2000-2200 mm of rainfall distributed evenly in a year. With these conditions you are assured of having a healthy tea plantation. Tea is harvested using hands in different parts of the world, but thanks to technology there are different types of machinery invented for this purpose. After harvesting the tea is brought to the factory and weighed, the weight is recorded and the tea leaves are taken to the first stage of tea processing. The leaves are first withered where their humidity is reduced to 30% or there about to make them soft and flexible for the next process. The second process is rolling where the leaves are rolled in a rolling machine which is a machine with heavy metal plates that roll against each other. This helps bring the cell fluid into contact with oxygen, fermentation is introduced and also the development of crucial oils which are vital for the different scents and flavor of the teas.
The third stage is fermentation which is an oxidation and tanning process of the cell fluids. During this process the leaves gradually change their color. Correct fermentation will determine the scents and quality of the teas. The fourth stage is drying, tea is usually moved through the dryer on a conveyor belt. The temperatures could start from 90°C and decrease to 40°C and humidity at approximately 6%. The cell fluid becomes stuck to the dried leave and when the tea is infused and solved in hot water, it produces an aromatic and strong drink. Sorting is the last stage where the black tea that is released by the dryer, raw tea, is sieved through shaking and mechanical sieves that have different sizes. (dethlefsen-balk.de).
From here the tea is packed according to the type, quality and other factors, and that’s how tea ends up on the supermarket shelves near you. The next time you sip it, know that’s the process it’s taken for your tea to end up in your tea cup.
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