Black tea belongs to fermented tea and is one of the six major tea categories in China. Black tea can be found everywhere in people's daily lives. China's black tea includes Gongfu black tea, red crushed tea and small black tea, and their production process is similar. So what is the processing process of black tea? Let's talk to you about the processing process of black tea.
1. Picking
Freshly mined to preserve the active ingredients of fresh leaves. The raw materials of black tea have higher requirements for tenderness, and the spring tea picking standard is generally 1 bud and 1 leaf or a bud 2 or 3 leaves. High-grade black teas such as Golden Junmei and Golden Bud need to be picked as raw materials.
2. Withering
The process of spreading out the picked fresh leaves to make the fresh leaves lose water is called wilting, the purpose of which is to evaporate part of the water, make the leaf stem from brittle to soft, increase the toughness of the buds, and facilitate kneading into strips; in addition, it can also make a series of chemical changes in the contents of the tea stalks, which is the specific quality of forming a black tea color fragrance.
3. Kneading
The withered raw leaves are artificially kneaded into strips and the tea juice is kneaded moderately. The shape of black tea must use the process of kneading. Kneading causes the tea cells to be destroyed, the leaves are rolled into strips, and the tea juice spills out and condenses on the tea table, which not only increases the strong aroma of the tea leaves, but also creates conditions for fermentation.
4. Fermentation
Place the twisted leaves in a wooden barrel or bamboo basket, press them tightly, cover the damp cloth in the sun, and emit the aroma of tea, that is, a wet blank of raw tea. Fermentation is the most critical process of black tea processing, and the temperature of the fermentation chamber is controlled below 30 degrees. It increases the activity of oxidase, oxidative polymerization occurs with polyphenols, and the leaves turn red, forming the quality characteristics of black tea red leaf red soup.
5. Drying
Drying is the process of roasting the fermented tea blank at high temperature and quickly evaporating the water to achieve a shelf-quality dryness. Its purpose is threefold: to use the activity of rapidly passivating enzymes at high temperatures to stop fermentation; to evaporate water, to reduce the volume, to fix the shape, and to maintain dryness to prevent mildew; It emits most of the low boiling point grass odor, intensifies and retains the high boiling point aromatic substances, and obtains the unique sweet aroma of black tea.
6. Screening
The whole process of screening should be sieved through different types of tea to sift out more than ten kinds, and each number of head tea is divided.
7. Picking
The light slices, fragments, yellow flakes, tea stems and debris in each tea sieved are hand-picked and removed.
8. Packaging
After all the processes are completed, the outside is made of wooden boxes and the inside is packed and sealed with tin foil.
The above is the specific processing process of black tea, now everyone understands it, right? Today's sharing is here, I hope to be of some help to everyone.