The secrets of producing a great tea
Here’s how our tea is produced – every step:
| Planting: | It takes at least two years for the vegetatively propagated tea to grow into a tea bush that produces leaves for plucking. |
| Plucking: | Only the two leaves and bud are plucked from the top of the bushes. We carefully hand pluck every leaf early in the morning to ensure the leaves do not get crushed or damaged. » See plucking in action |
| Withering: | Leaves are withered by placing them on troughs and blowing warm or fresh air over them to remove the water content and ensure the leaves are soft.This allows the leaves to get a good twist when rolled in the next step. Withering lasts for about 24 hours and needs to be done evenly to all leaves in order to ensure consistent quality. » See the troughs in action |
| Rolling: | Withered leaves are rolled and twisted to start the fermentation process. Adjusting the specially designed rollers to produce a great tea is an art. |
| Firing: | To arrest the fermentation process the leaves are baked in wood fire ovens, which is where the green leaves turn black. This must be done at the right time and right temperatures to ensure quality. |
| Colour separation: |
The leaves are run through a machines that separates different colour particles to ensure the tea is free of foreign particles. Quality tea is a consistent colour. |
| Sieving: | The fired leaves are run over metal meshes that vibrate and have different size sieves to separate the leaves by size. A good quality tea is a consistent size leaf. |
| Packing: | The tea is then packed in large foil bags and put into big tea chests and sent to the Ceylon Tea Auctions. » See the packed tea |
| Tasting: | Connoisseurs who work for brokers taste every batch of tea and note its quality. » Visit the tasting rooms |
| Auctioning: | The tea is then sold at the auctions where the market determines the price based on supply and demand and quality. Did you know that tea from our plantation has been consistently fetching the top price at the world famous Ceylon Tea Auctions. |
| Blending: | Big tea houses blend different types of tea to produce commonly consumed blends. While our tea used to only be available to these big tea houses, now you can get our tea in small quantities. |
| Distributing: | The tea is packed as loose leaf packs in boxes or tea bags and shipped out to retailers. Our tea is marketed internationally through our sister company based in Australia. » Visit Serenetea |
| SUMMARY: | In summary, to produce a great tea, incredible attention needs to be paid to the details of each step. This can only be achieved through endless passion. Nature also lends a helping hand – our plantation is situated in the midst of one of the world’s richest rain forests. » Take a tour |
