Aracha (Crude tea) to finishing tea

Aracha is sent to the finishing factories for the finishing process. Finishing process are separating, firing, soating, and blending. Separating process has several different stages and uses different machines to shake off particles and unnecessary part of tea to clean the tea. This process is usually done by separation machine. Firing has two different purposes. One is drying the leaves and reducing the moisture in order to make tea better condition for storing. Another is to increase aroma. By adding firing process, grassy smell reduce greatly, and produce pirazine、pirol and flan. Besides these produced elements, amino acid、gimechilsulfid are added and enhance the aroma and the flavor. Sorting is for taking the stalks out from the product. There is one method use static electricity. This method is when tea leaves are through the high-tension current; stalks will be aspirate to the direction of the electrodes. The machines used this method are widely used in Japan. Blending is to blend teas based on the expectations of each retailers and consumers. There are approximately 1300 finishing factories in Japan, and among them 400 are located in Shizuoka prefecture.