Ceylon Tea History - Chapter 03

Tea production in Ceylon increased dramatically in the 1880s and by 1888 the area under cultivation exceeded that of coffee, growing to nearly 400,000 acres in 1899. The only Ceylonese planter to venture in to tea production at the early stage was Charles Henry de Soysa. British figures such as Henry Randolph Trafford arrived in Ceylon and bought coffee estates in places such as Poyston, near Kandy, in 1880, which was the centre of the coffee culture of Ceylon at the time. Although Trafford knew little about coffee, he had considerable knowledge of tea cultivation and is considered one of the pioneer tea planters in Ceylon. By 1883, Trafford was the resident manager of numerous estates in the area that were switching over to tea production. By the late 1880s, almost all the coffee plantations in Ceylon had been converted to tea. Similarly, coffee stores rapidly converted to tea factories in order to meet increasing demand. Tea processing technology rapidly developed in the 1880s, following on from the manufacture of the first "Sirocco" tea drier by Samuel Cleland Davidson in 1877 and the manufacture of the first tea rolling machine by John Walker & Co in 1880—essential technologies that made realizing commercial tea production a reality. This realization was confirmed in 1884 with the construction of the Central Tea Factory on Fairyland Estate (Pedro) in Nuwara Eliya. As tea production in Ceylon progressed, new factories were constructed and innovative methods of mechanization introduced from England. Marshall, Sons & Co. of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, the Tangyes Machine Company of Birmingham, and Davidson & Co. of Belfast supplied the new tea factories with machinery, a function they continue to perform to the present.

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KENYAN TEA MANUFACTURING PROCESS

👉Black Tea manufacture: Withering: The objective of withering is to reduce the moisture in the t ealeaf by up to 70% (varies from region to region). Tea is laid out on a wire mesh in troughs. Air is then passed through the tea removing the moisture in a uniform way. This process takes around 12 to 17 hours. At the end of this time the leaf is limp and pliable and so will roll well. Rolling: Tea is placed into a rolling machine, which rotates horizontally on the rolling table. This action creates the twisted wiry looking tealeaves. During the rolling process the leaves are also broken open, which starts the third process - oxidisation. Oxidisation: Once rolling is complete, the tea is either put into troughs or laid out on tables whereby the enzymes inside the tealeaf come in to contact with the air and start to oxidise. This creates the flavour, colour and strength of the tea. It is during this process that the tealeaf changes from green, through light ...

TEA TASTING - Chapter 01

TEA TASTING - Chapter 01 Tea tasting, much like wine tasting, uses similar steps – visual, smell, taste and touch. A lot about a tea can be told by examining the dry leaves. Gently press some dry leaves in your hand – most new teas are a little springier and less likely to crumble than older teas. Tea tasting is the process in which a trained taster determines the quality of a particular tea. Due to climatic conditions, topography, manufacturing process, and different clones of the Camellia sinensis plant (tea), the final product may have vastly differing flavours and appearance. These differences can be tasted by a trained taster in order to ascertain the quality prior to sale or possibly blending tea. It is the taster who describes and values tea. His description of the liquor is based on taste. In its widest sense, which includes aroma, taste is a very complex property that has so far not been assessed chemically. A taster may deal with several hundred tea samples in a d...

KENYAN PURPLE TEA💜🍃☕

Purple tea is a special type of tea produced mostly in Kenya, and smaller amounts in Japan, China and India. Unlike yellow, green, oolong, black, dark or white tea, purple tea is not a tea type–it’s a cultivar called TRFK 306/1 that can be used for making all types of tea. It’s a tea that contains same anti oxidants as purplish and blueish fruits such as blueberries, red cabbage or chokeberries – anthocyanins. In fact, purple tea contains very high levels of anthocyanin – 135 times more than regular green tea. However, purple tea doesn’t brew into a cup of purple-colored tea. The name comes from the fresh tea leaves of a tea plant that have a distinguishable purple hue. Naturally purple or blue color in teas is very rare, such as deep blue intense color of a herbal Butterfly Pea Flower tea.

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