Tea Quality Control

Testing the tea quality is use dry tea leaf generally placed on a piece of white paper and does the following points:

• Grading: The teas have to be classified as per their grades.
• Color separation: Grayness in tea is not desirable as it denotes faulty production; generally during sorting.

The thin and varnish like coating on the dry leaf is rubbed off and results in a gray color. This coating is soluble in water and plays an important part in liquoring properties. If absent, the tea must necessarily have been deprived of its fullest liquoring capabilities. A brown appearance, on the other hand, is often unavoidable with very tippy tea. The reason for this is the hair growth down the shoot, which has been picked for manufacture. The second leaf may have a quantity of hair insufficient to produce a golden appearance known as tip but sufficient to discolor the leaf to that of a brownish color. Also during rolling some hair may be rubbed off the bud and possibly the first leaf and deposited on the coarser leaf. During firing this hair is affixed to the leaf and results in a brownish leaf appearance.

Some teas produce a reddish appearance at certain times of the year. This is generally found during the autumnal period when growth is slow and the tea shoots become less succulent tinged leaf throughout the year. A reddish appearance in dry leaf is undesirable if caused by coarse plucking. In this case the red appearance brought about by hard and coarse leaf is considerably emphasized by the presence of red stalk.

Related Articles:

• Tea Production
• Tea Planting
• Tea Drying and Planting