Item No. 9: Tea, part 2.

Taking the tea for weighing

Tea bushes were grown from seed at first, taken from tall parent plants. Now all the bushes come from cuttings and are grown in winding rows following the contours of the mountains, assuring the standard quality of the leaves. The plants, which would grow to over 30 feet if left alone, are pruned down to about a metre. Tall shade trees punctuate the manicured gardens, where women, with large
bags slung from their foreheads, pick the top two leaves and a bud. Four kilogrammes of leaves are required to make one kilogramme of black tea and an experienced plucker, carefully taking out the two leaves at the tip of the shoot, can pick thirty kilogrammes a day, a heavy load to cart around to the weighing stations. Tea bushes can live for a long time, but here they are renewed in patches across the gardens on a constant schedule. This can be anything from 25 to over 50 years.

Originally it was thought that green tea and black tea, both originating in China, came from two different bushes. After a period of skulduggery, when spies and collectors managed to travel within the closed areas of China, it was realised that tea, like the varieties of pepper, was one plant only.

This picture shows the camelia-family flower, the leaf and fruit on the right, and then the stages in processing. The wet, green leaves are crushed, and then for green tea they are simply dried. Black tea involves a fermentation process during which the unwanted stems are taken away as a sort of fluff, used as fertiliser, and the tea is dried and crushed to the required grade. Fermentation can take as little as 40 minutes and tea delivered to a factory in the afternoon is processed and packed by the following afternoon.

In spite of the fact that nearly all tea made in Kerala is black, and even that is mostly local dust, the Tata tea Museum in Munnar extols the benefits of drinking green tea:

“Enjoy your perfect cup of green tea:
Fill a non-reactive pot or pan with water and heat, when the air bubble come (80 to 85OC)Switch off the power or gas put the green tea 2 to 3 grams for 1.litre close the lid for 3minutes filter it and use 2 to 3 grams for 1.litre for one day is enough to kill the bacteria’s which is generating daily in our body frequently. Use small quantity at a time 2 to 3 ounce because you want to kill that much bacteria’s at a time.”
Tata Tea Museum, Munnar