Orthodox Tea - a short explanation
Since its first beginnings as a consumable product the process for converting green leaf into black tea has involved four distinct procedures. In modern terminology these are Withering, Rolling, Fermenting and Drying. Each of these processes involves complicated physical and chemical changes in the leaf as manufacture proceeds. Over the years these changes have gradually become better understood and with this increased knowledge machinery for controlling each process has been invented.
Initially tea production was a garden operation and manufacture a 'kitchen' responsibility. It was many centuries before commercial planting of estates in India that machinery replaced manual manipulation of the leaf and tea factories began. The means by which the leaf is broken up has historically given it's name to the type of manufacture used to create black tea from green leaf. Back in the days of 'kitchen' manufacture the leaf was most usually rolled by hand on a flat surface. This fractured the leaf cells and imparted a twist to the leaf. The juice from the broken leaf began to ferment when exposed to oxygen in the air and was prevented from over fermenting by being dried over a fire. By subsequently applying boiling water to the black leaf this dried 'glaze' on each particle of leaf was dissolved and the resulting liquor was drunk. Thus was a bowl of tea born!
Machinery which emulated this 'kitchen' process has forever been referred to as a roller and the process of manufacture involving rollers to fracture the leaf has been known as Orthodox manufacture. Until about fifty years ago every commercial tea factory used Orthodox manufacture. Other machines were invented and tried, but mostly discarded. In the recent history of fifty years the invention of the C.T.C machine, the Legge cutter and the rotorvane took place and of these the C.T.C and the rotorvane prevailed.
How they worked and what they achieved will be described at the beginning of February. Meanwhile Orthodox tea can be obtained by accessing the mail order form here.