Black Tea - Orthodox Production
Orthodox tea production provides any desired grade of leaves. Depending on the quality requirements for the tea and the geographical conditions, the leaves are either plucked manually or by machine.
Black Tea - CTC Production
In this shorter production method, it takes just a single process step to crush, tear, and curl the leaves (hence CTC). The results are no leaf grades, only broken Pekoe, Pekoe fannings, and Pekoe dust. The tea is still plucked by hand or by machine, depending on requirements and geographical location.
Black Tea - LTP Production
This method is mainly used in the production of tea bags.
It results in no leaf grade, hardly any broken grades – almost exclusively in fannings and dust. The process is named after
its inventor (Lawrie Tea Processor).
In the same way as in the CTC process, the freshly plucked
leafs placed into a rotorvane processor.
The processor consists of fast rotating knives, cutting the tea leaves until only fannings and dust grades remain. The more rotorvane processors are used in succession, the finer the leaves are cut. By continuously blowing in cold air, the leaves are prevented from overheating and the fermentation process is sped up. The torn leaves (dhool) are placed into large fermentation troughs. All further production steps are comparable to CTC production.
