Crude tea

Making process of Sencha has two processes, making process of crude tea and refinery process. In making process of crude tea, tea leaves are repeatedly dried and rolled to have needle shaped tea leaves and refinery process is to produce refined tea that can be in the market as merchandise. Crude tea is distributed from the producers to wholesalers, not to consumers, while refined tea after refinery process is marketed for consumers. Making process of crude tea is divided into 6 sub processes, during which steaming and rolling are repeated in each apparatus of each process. Tea Steaming Steaming is done for the purpose of killing the oxidizing enzymes in fresh leaves and the smell of fresh leaves as adding the fragrance of green tea, and increasing the flexibility of leaves for easier operation of making process. Taking an advantage of abundant steam in low pressure, leaves are steamed evenly then cooled down rapidly. Steaming for regular tea takes 30-45 seconds and 1-2 minutes for deep steamed tea. Primary Drying and Rolling In this process, the steamed leaves are twisted and dried in the machine with press arms and stir arms. It is important to keep the temperature of leaves at around 35 centigrade for effective drying and higher quality of tea. It takes about 45 minutes. Rolling During this process, tea leaves are twisted by pressing without heat to have uniform moisture. The time for the process is about 20 minutes. Secondary Drying and Rolling This process is done by a direct fired furnace, a main shaft with press arms in the rotary drum, which presses and dries the leaves. Leaves gradually become long shaped. It takes about 40 minutes. Final Drying and Rolling This process is done to reduce the moisture of the leaves and to have needle shaped leaves. Leaves are pressed as being dried by a burner. The press force is increased as leaves are observed and decreased when they are dry. How they are pressed affects the appearance of tea as well as the color and taste. This is the most difficult process but automation is becoming popular. It takes about 40 minutes. Drying Leaves containing some moisture are not appropriate to be stored for a long time. Therefore, they are put in a drying chamber of 80 degrees centigrade heat to reduce the water content to be about 5%. The time for this process is about 30 minutes and the leaves processed are called Aracha, crude tea. After being plucked, the tea leaves are sent to the crude tea making factory, where they are steamed with heat. That is why most of the crude tea factories are located near the tea fields. Most of the crude tea factories are owned by farmers, who run the factories individually or cooperatively. Recently, large cooperative modern factories are increasing for effective operation.