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Instead it follows a delicate and intricate procedure which produces one of the best tea in the world. Darjeeling Black Tea goes through all the stages discussed below. If a green tea or white tea is being produced, all the steps may not be followed. Plucking tea leaves from the gardens: For Darjeeling tea, there needs to be only selective plucking of two leaves and the bud that makes a shoot. To make a kilogram of tea about 22,000 shoots are required. On an average a plucker is given a target of 4 to 5kgs per day, and during the high plucking season the target increases and can get doubled. While tea plucking season is from March to November, bulk of the tea leaves are plucked during the monsoon time. Mostly the teas are plucked in the morning when the morning dews are still there on the tea leaves. Withering: The next step is withering which is a way of drying the tea leaves in the factory. It is essentially removing the moisture content of the leaves. Initially the tea leaves have 70 - 80% moisture. The leaves are placed in a trough (long wooden box) and covered with a wire mesh. Strong air is blown through the boxes with the help of fans placed at one end. This helps drying the tea leaves uniformly. Rolling: After withering is completed, the tea leaves are taken to the next stage of rolling. Here mechanical rollers twist and press the leaves. Usually the tea leaves are subjected to two rolling of 40 minutes each and the rolling pressure varies. In between the rolling, sifting takes place where the coarse leaves are separated from the finer leaves with the help of machines. The step is carefully monitored so that leaves do not break and overheating does not take place. Fermentation: The third step is to ferment the leaves. In this stage, the leaves are kept on thin and clean trays in a cool and humid environment. Through bio-chemical process the fermentation takes place. Usually the process lasts between 2-4 hours depending on the quality of tea being produced. It is at this stage when the tea leaves actually start developing their natural aroma and flavor. Drying: After fermentation, the tea leaves are once again dried in large mechanical dryers. They are fed in through conveyor belts from one end. The belts continuously vibrate and then take the tea through a temperature range of 115-120°C and bring out ready tea from the other end. The process lasts for about 20-30 minutes. At the end the tea is almost completely moisture free. Sorting and Packing: The final stage is to sort or separate the different grades of tea leaves based on their size and then pack them. There are automatic sorting machines that sort the tea leaves based on their sizes (full leaves, broken, fanning and dust). Processing of Black, Green and White Darjeeling Tea Note that all types of tea do not go through the same processing steps. In fact depending on the flavour and quality of tea, within each step delicate variations are made. The Black Darjeeling Tea usually goes through all the steps mentioned above. In case of Darjeeling Green tea, the leaves are first withered. The withering takes place between 8 to 24 hours to remove the moisture. After that they are steamed, as a result the oxidation is prevented to take place and the enzymes are neutralized. Then the leaves are rolled to different degrees and again dried. Processing of White tea is somewhat similar to that of green tea. White tea is only steamed and then dried. There is no withering, rolling or oxidation done keeping all the natural ingredients and the chemicals almost intact.
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