Impact of High Pressure Rotorvane on CTC Black Tea Quality

Cosmas K. Langat, Abel N. Mayaka, Charles M. M. Ondieki

Conventional black tea is produced using variety of tea leaves called Camellia sinensis (species of evergreen shrub or small tree whose leaves and leaf buds are used to produce black tea). Black tea processing production involve plucking, withering, maceration/rolling, cutting, oxidation/fermentation and drying. In the conventional black tea process, CTC (Cutting, Tearing and Curling) is where tea leaves are cut to rapture plant cells so as to release catechins for oxidation / fermentation for 2 hours before being stopped in the dryer at a temperature of 130O C. The CTC tea manufacturing process produces high quality teas. High pressure Rotorvane has been designed for processing of Orthodox teas [1] by converting standard Rotorvane from Low to high Pressure [2] and tested to produce Orthodox Large Particle Tea that is able to infuse like normal conventional black CTC teas [3]. To check impact of high pressure Rotorvane on CTC black tea, factory trials were done using 15'' Rotorvane at different pressures and were then tracked through the innovation manufacturing process. Made tea samples for each trial were drawn and assessed by tea tasters for quality using the Unilever International Tea Categorisation System (ITCS) and quality comparisons made. It was found out that the higher the Rotorvane pressure the higher the quality of CTC made tea to an optimum level of 25MN/m2 on quality parameters of Taste, Colour and Mouthfeel giving a taste score of 5.4 which is 0.4 above conventional CTC made tea quality of 5.0. Leaf appearance score remained the same at 5. From the conclusion obtained, high pressure Rotorvane should be used as a standard equipment in the processing of high-quality CTC teas in the Tea industry.

https://dx.doi.org/10.31873/IJEAS.6.9.21