Manufacturing of Green Tea

Preparation of Tea leaves

In the preparation of black tea, four steps are followed, which are withering, rolling, oxidation and drying.
Green tea, however, is prepared differently, in order to retain flavours and colour.

Withering

The leaves undergo the withering process depending on the type of the green tea that is being produced.

The objective of withering is to reduce the moisture content in the leaf. The plucked leaves are laid out in a trough, where air passes through the leaves, removing moisture. This process can be up to 17 hours, resulting a wilted appearance of leaves. 

Oxidation

The tea leaves are not allowed the opportunity to oxidize, since this would change the colour of the tea leaves. Oxidation is the process of allowing the enzymes in the leaf to react with Oxygen, which results in the leaves turning brown, and hence giving the characteristic colour of black teas. As such, the tea leaves remain green in colour.

Oxidation can be stopped by traditionally heating the leaves in a large wok. Precise skill is needed to ensure that the leaves are constantly being moved, so as to avoid them burning. Heating the leaves hence kills the enzymes, which avoids oxidation. It can also be stopped by steaming the leaves, in which the leaves are passed through a cylinder with high pressure steam blasting through it. The leaves are left for only a couple of seconds, but it is enough to kill the enzymes in the leaves. However, a slightly different overall taste profile is achieved, and the output is referred to as steamed Green Tea.

Rolling

There are two types of rolling involved.

• Orthodox - The leaves are rolled between rollers until they are gently broken
• CTC (Cut, Tear, Cut) - A machine cuts and tears the leaves into smaller pieces.

Drying

After the tea leaves are heated and fired, the dried tea is ready to be sorted into grades before they are packed.

Dried Tea leaves

Varieties of Twining's tea

Blending

Twining's has 300 years experience with blending superb quality teas, an expertise that has been handed down for generations. Nine people are responsible for every type of tea that Twining's produces. This means that worldwide, Twining's tea will taste the same. Ingredients are carefully selected and quality controls are performed at each stage of sourcing and blending so as to ensure that the highest quality of tea is produced. Twining's also controls their recipes and what goes into their tea, by blending herb and fruit ingredients at their factories. The pie chart at the right gives an example of the wide variety of teas that are produced by Twining's.