Withering

Harvesting of leaves from the Camellia Senensis plant happens every 4-7 days. Green leaves are carefully plucked by
factory-employed personnel and transported to our factories taking utmost care. When transporting, leaves are put into
bags and transported via lorries as quickly as possible to retain its freshness.

Once brought into the factory the leaves are weighed and put into large trough, which are about 80-100 ft long,
after being sorted for any spoilt leaf during transportation. The actual manufacturing process starts here, with the
first process known as withering. Withering is the process in which water in the leaves are made to evaporate in order to
prepare for manufacture. Large fans operate at the front of the trough which blow in the desired mixture of hot and cold
air into the trough. The withering processcontinues for a period of 10-12 hours under close supervision.

Rolling and Fermentation
After the leaves are withered to the desired level, the withered leaves are fed into rollers. Rollers break up the leaves into
smaller particles giving them a twist. A process known as roll breaking takes place next. This is the first instance where
the separation of larger leaves to large leaf grades and smaller leaves to flowery grades occur. After the roll breaking process
the larger leaves are fed into the rollers again to break them up into even smaller particles. This process is repeated twice
more.
Fermentation starts when the green leaves are first plucked from the plant. The smaller leaf particles obtained from
each roll breaking process and the larger leaf particles from the last roll breaking process are laid in beds, for fermentation
of leaves. The fermentation process continues for a period of 2-3 hours.

Drying
Once completed, the leaves are fed in to large driers. The driers have temperatures of 194F-266F (90C-130C) and
the process takes place for approximately 20 minutes. The resulting product from the drier is black tea

Sorting and Packaging
The teas from driers are further sorted into Leafy Grades and Flowery Grades using modern hi-tech machinery. Eventually
after the sorting of teas is complete, teas are packed into weather proof, high quality, large brown paper bags which have
aluminum foil lining inside to retain the freshness while in transportation. These teas are dispatched to brokers' warehouses
and ultimately sold at the weekly Colombo Tea Auction.