More than you'll ever want to know about the tea-making process!
Hope (econ grad student from Michigan) and I went on a tour of one of the Lujeri Tea factories last week. After the fieldworkers have plucked all their tea leaves or the nearby farmers sold their tea leaves to Lujeri, all of it comes to one of three Lujeri factories for processing.
In the first photo, the factory workers are loading the newly arrived tea into big basins where the tea leaves will have their first of several drying stages. The tea bins are filled about a foot deep with the leaves. The day we went only about half of the 7 or 8 bins were being used - winter is coming and tea production is slowing.
The tea leaves come into the factory containing about 70 percent water (more if its raining or moist outside) and the first drying process brings the water percentage down to 67 or 68 percent. Depending on the leaves, the drying can take 6-12 hours. After the first drying stage is done, the leaves are put through the "crushing" phase.
Below you can see leaves before and after they are crushed by the factory machines.
The leaves will go through several phases of crushing, turning into ever smaller pieces.
More crushing... Conveyor belts take the tea from one crushing machine to the next.
Below the tea has finished being crushed for the final time and now it will go through seveal stages of drying. At this point, it is when it starts to smell like the drinking tea we know. The color slowly changes from green to brown throughout the process. The crushing and drying processes take 2-3 hours, depending on the tempature and humidity of the current day. The time and converyor belt speed is adjusted accordingly each day.
After the tea is dryed out, then its time to sort the tea based on quality. Below they are showing us the eight different levels of quality. The finest quality has the smallest, darkest pieces while the lower qualities have bigger chunks and some lighter colored pieces.
Contrary to what I assumed, highest quality tea is not always the "best". Most tea buyers want the qualities to be mixed to have a more full flavor. The finer tea is used for tea bags, while the lower quality is used for loose tea.
Depending on the buyer order, the qualities of tea are mixed and then packaged in their big bags. That guy is using a massive sucking machine to move the bags from pile to pile!
Low quality tea that is not bought for tea consumption is not wasted. Lujeri often sells the leftover tea to pharmaceutical companies - they extract the caffeine from the tea for use in their medicines. Sometimes the tea is used as fertilizer on the estate as well.
When a buyer comes to town, they set out samplings of all the tea qualities for them to try. I've also seen them set out like this for the factory manager to taste everyday, to ensure the quality is maintained.
I believe that nearly 100 percent of the tea packaged and sold from the Lujeri factories leaves the country for places like the UK and US. All tea that is shipped out is eventually mixed with many other teas before being sold. Fortunately, we can put in special orders and have a kilo or two for ourselves straight from the factory - the only way to drink pure Lujeri tea.
*All pictures are courtesy of Hope Thompson.
Hope (econ grad student from Michigan) and I went on a tour of one of the Lujeri Tea factories last week. After the fieldworkers have plucked all their tea leaves or the nearby farmers sold their tea leaves to Lujeri, all of it comes to one of three Lujeri factories for processing.
In the first photo, the factory workers are loading the newly arrived tea into big basins where the tea leaves will have their first of several drying stages. The tea bins are filled about a foot deep with the leaves. The day we went only about half of the 7 or 8 bins were being used - winter is coming and tea production is slowing.
The tea leaves come into the factory containing about 70 percent water (more if its raining or moist outside) and the first drying process brings the water percentage down to 67 or 68 percent. Depending on the leaves, the drying can take 6-12 hours. After the first drying stage is done, the leaves are put through the "crushing" phase.
Below you can see leaves before and after they are crushed by the factory machines.
The leaves will go through several phases of crushing, turning into ever smaller pieces.
More crushing... Conveyor belts take the tea from one crushing machine to the next.
Below the tea has finished being crushed for the final time and now it will go through seveal stages of drying. At this point, it is when it starts to smell like the drinking tea we know. The color slowly changes from green to brown throughout the process. The crushing and drying processes take 2-3 hours, depending on the tempature and humidity of the current day. The time and converyor belt speed is adjusted accordingly each day.
After the tea is dryed out, then its time to sort the tea based on quality. Below they are showing us the eight different levels of quality. The finest quality has the smallest, darkest pieces while the lower qualities have bigger chunks and some lighter colored pieces.
Contrary to what I assumed, highest quality tea is not always the "best". Most tea buyers want the qualities to be mixed to have a more full flavor. The finer tea is used for tea bags, while the lower quality is used for loose tea.
Depending on the buyer order, the qualities of tea are mixed and then packaged in their big bags. That guy is using a massive sucking machine to move the bags from pile to pile!
Low quality tea that is not bought for tea consumption is not wasted. Lujeri often sells the leftover tea to pharmaceutical companies - they extract the caffeine from the tea for use in their medicines. Sometimes the tea is used as fertilizer on the estate as well.
When a buyer comes to town, they set out samplings of all the tea qualities for them to try. I've also seen them set out like this for the factory manager to taste everyday, to ensure the quality is maintained.
I believe that nearly 100 percent of the tea packaged and sold from the Lujeri factories leaves the country for places like the UK and US. All tea that is shipped out is eventually mixed with many other teas before being sold. Fortunately, we can put in special orders and have a kilo or two for ourselves straight from the factory - the only way to drink pure Lujeri tea.
*All pictures are courtesy of Hope Thompson.
