How dark tea is manufactured?
Stages involved in producing dark tea.
1- WITHERING for several hours in the open air.
2- FIXING, to stop oxidation of the leaves.
3- ROLLING using traditional rollers.
4- ROLLING the leaves in orthodox rollers.
5- SUN-DRYING, of the leaves harvested that morning. This operation ends around midday.
6- FERMENTATION OF LEAVES: traditionally compressed into cakes after rolling. In the 1970s, a rapid fermentation technique was developed in response to the growing demand for Pu-erh tea. This involves stacking the leaves, covering them in a linen cloth and spraying them with water. It takes around 40 days for the leaves to achieve the desired level of fermentation.
7- DRYING of the cakes or loose leaves to reduce the water content.
Our selection of pu erh dark teas
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