Tea Manufacture details

If you are interested in my more detailed comment on the subject you can download my PDF on 'The details of tea manufacture'.

Tea Manufacture - download as a PDF

Below I have entered a short summary on the subject of manufacture and specifically some of the requirements for quality manufacture:

A tea field will range in size from 20 acres to as much as 50 acres in extent
A tea estate may be made up of 2 - 6 divisions, each division will probably have been a private coffee estate in the days when the British evolved the plantation system in the island starting in about 1828.
Estates can vary in size from 100 acres up to 4,000 acres in extent.

Firstly the overall management and discipline of an estate is extremely important to the ultimate quality of its teas. Maintaining the tea fields in a state of excellent health and vigourous growth comes under the term of 'Field Management'. Within this general term come vital elements such as drainage, combating soil erosion, level of shade and provision of green manure mater to thatch and enrich the soil with humus from various species of trees, pruning every tea field at 3 - 4.5 years intervals dependent upon the elevation of the estate concerned.
Finally disciplined plucking where only soft pliable leaf is taken and sent to the factory. this was a concept that was rigourously followed right up to the 1970's, thereafter with union negotiations based on quantity rather than quality this has become a major concern where the old traditional rolling system is maintained. In 2009 negotiations between the unions and the estates have concentrated more on bonuses based on quality and this is a welcome move.


In this island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) we have central Southern highland region that has traditionally been associated with the great Ceylon tea classics. These classics or extreme quality teas require a minimum elevation height of 1,100 metres ( we used to say 3,500 feet in elevation) as at that height the elevation has a particular character that is imparted to the bush and in particular the chemical content of the leaf cells.

This central highland region contains 5 of the major tea districts but extending to the East of the highest district - Nuwara Eliya (quality season February / March), is an escarpment which forms one side of a deep valley called the Malwatta valley, spreading Eastwards and to the South is an area of more undulating hills called the Uva district which produces some amazing teas in the Uva quality season of July / August. Whilst the Uva region contains mainly undulating rolling hills there are several exceptions and the Haputale area is one of those where a community owned estate that we work with rises to over 6,000 feet (1,900 metres). The railway passes teh factory and climbs to this height on its way to Bandarawella. The 7 major tea districts encompass 32 different agro climates which determine the different characters of Ceylon teas.

To produce really top quality teas we use the two quality seasons in a year and negotiate directly with the estates for the type of tea that we are after. Whilst dry weather is absolutely essential to teh process, it is also necessary to have a strong cool wind blowing in from the ocean and up into the tea fields. This combination where the tea fields have been subjected to perhaps three or four weeks of dry weather and the arrival of the cool wind is the combination that creates the ideal state in the leaf cells of the emerging weekly 'flush' or pluckable growth allowing a certain character that will have developed in the chemical content of the cells and also an ideal moisture level which will allow for a faster rate of rolling or manufacture to take place. This weather conditions should ideally produce a difference in the reading of the Wet & Dry bulb hygrometer that is of the order of a minimum difference of 7 degrees ranging up to as much as 15 degrees for extreme quality conditions.

This island is internationally known for the huge range of teas that it can produce and the quality of those teas which was always based upon the traditional eliptical rollers where the leaf is gently encourage to twist and rupture cell content dependent upon the grades of leaf being aimed at. Leaf grade is a measure of the finished manufactured leaf size which can vary from market requirements for stronger thicker teas requiring the smaller leaf size to larger grades giving lighter liquors and characters.
Since the 1980's the island has had to adjust to the public's fascination with tea bag & convenience loose teas teas that brew quickly and easily which in my view is clearly a move away from diverse characters and quality.
The UK market in particular seems to have been obsessed with convenience and low cost, neither of which can encompass natural quality character teas. This obsession has lead the British supermarkets to demand blended teas using low quality, low cost bulk filler teas from some of the newer producing countries with some added quality Ceylon or Indian tea to raise the acceptance of the product. This system has been of great benefit to marketing as the customer would rarely notice a blending down of a tea to lower the marketing cost of the product but to still maintain the margin for the supplier and the supermarket.
In the last few years I have been to see that many consumers are begining to rebel against low quality teas and tea bag teas, perhaps this may have been as a result of more people travelling to countries like india and Sri Lanka where they have appreciated the variety of and the freshness of the teas that they have consumed.

One last piece of advice that I think consumers need to appreciate is that because a tea is marketed as a single estate tea, it does not mean that it is of extreme seasonal quality. In Sri Lanka the estates maintain a ridgid 7 day plucking round, that means that every bush on the estate will be visited by the pluckers every 7 days and plucked. In dry weather conditions the yield of leaf will be low and the prices for such teas higher, in wet conditions the quality of the leaf will be low and on many occaisions undrinkable. To offset this, the industry has devised a system of blending what are called 'Standards'. These maybe estate standards or district standards where some teas from teh extreme high quality periods is retained and added to very poor quality teas to bring up to an acceptable standard that can be marketed. Furthermore foreign buyers can contact an agent and demand a certain maximum price level taht they are prepared to pay and the agent will blend and supply samples of various standards close to that price structure. Each blending or standard will be allocated a code which will allow the agent to re-create that standard on a regular basis.
This is the sort of information that you will never see blazened on a Tea Council site or information brochure. The Tea Council in a country is supposed to be representative of the producer countries and the marketing companies in the consuming country. However unfortunately we have seen a greater control of these tea councils by the marketing interests in the consuming countries and a declining promotion of the producing countries. In fact at this very time in 2010 I have been led to believe taht this is becoming an urgent point for discussion by certain producing countries who feel that their funding of these tea councils serves little purpose to their promotional needs.