Industrial Visit To Dodabetta Tea Factory

We reached Dodabetta tea factory at Coonoor, Tamil Nadu at 9:00 AM

on the 21st of June ,2019 after a long 12-hour long drive. All my classmates
were very excited about our first industrial visit. The industrial visit was
organised to understand the various processes in the production of tea and in
turn to understand the concepts in production/ operations management.

Dodabetta Tea Factory, at Coonoor, Tamil Nadu was founded in the year
2005, and is well managed by Mr. N.K. Krishnamoorthy, former Member of
Tea Board. Factory sprawls over an area of 1 acre in Ooty the midst of the many
blue hills of the Nilgiris, second largest hill station, bounded by tea plantations,
at an altitude of 1839 metres. Our production capacity is 30 tonnes per month.
Having about 35 years of experience in Tea field operations has passion to set a
Tea Museum adjacent to the Dodabetta Tea Factory. As per his desire, he
established the Tea Museum on 1 acre at Ooty.
Production (or Operations) management is an umbrella term which
encompasses an array of ideas within the xenophobic managerial circles, mostly
exemplified by the varied literal definitions of these terms based on the source.
“Production / Operations Management is defined as the process which
transforms the inputs/resources of an organization into final goods (or
services) through a set of defined, controlled and repeatable policies.”

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 Industrial Visit To Dodabetta Tea Factory

Procedure of different types of tea processing

Basic requirements for Manufacturing of good CTC Tea:

 Quality of Plucked Leaves

1. Quality is inherent in leaves.
2. Standard plucking, fine plucking give good quality tea.
3. Teas produced from coarse leaves will be full of fibre and flaky with poor
quality liquors.

 Optimum Wither
1. Light wither around 65% to 75 % has been found to be suitable.
2. Variation in wither depends on the texture of leaves.
3. Coarser the leaves lighter is the wither.

 Speed of the Roller

1. It is maintained at a ratio 1:10, speeds being usually at 70:700 rpm.
2. Higher the speed, poorer is the quality of tea due to excessive heat formation.
3. At lower speed cut is proper.

 Setting Rollers correctly

1. Incorrect setting would adversely affect the style of made tea.

 Teeth Sharpness
1. Rollers must always be maintained sharp.
2. The machine i.e., chasing and milling should be accurate and there must not
be any bluntness.
3. Blunt or inaccurate rollers produce flaky fibrous teas and liquor.

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 Industrial Visit To Dodabetta Tea Factory

4. Change the roller by 50 – 60 hrs.

Specification of Roller
 Temperature in the rolling room
1. The rolling room should be cool and humid.
2. Mist chambers are provided to keep the rolling room cool.

 Cleanliness
1. Bacterial contamination at the green leaves processing stage will affect the
liquors in the sensethat the briskness will be affected adversely.
2. The machine must be kept always very clean.

Black tea processing consists of the following unit

operations:
1. Plucking (Standard)
2. Weighing & transporting to the factories
3. Spreading
4. Withering (partial removal of moisture)
5. Cutting/disruption (size reduction)
6. Rolling
7. Fermentation/oxidation
(Bio-chemical reactions in the presence of oxygen)
8. Heating and drying (completion of moisture removal)
9. Sorting and Grading (fibre removal; grading based on size)
10. Gapping
11. Packing and transporting

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 Industrial Visit To Dodabetta Tea Factory

1. Plucking (Standard)
Plucking of leaves is very important for theproduction of good CTC tea.
If the tea isproduced from coarse leaves, the quality of tea willbe decreased.Leaf
plucking should be done in the morning andprocessing can begin the same day.
For goodquality tea, processing will be start within twohours of harvesting of
fresh tea. If waiting untilthe next day to process the tea, the quality will bemuch
lower, because fermentation will havebegun. During and after plucking, utmost
careshould be taken not to bruise or damage the freshleaves. For example,
leaves should not becompressed (pack down) in the harvesting baskets. The
fresh leaves should be placed out of the sun, in a cool well-ventilated place.

2. Weighing & transporting to the factories

Weighing and transport of tea leaves should be done very carefully
because all the plucked leaves should reach the factories within 12 hours after
plucking. During transporting, leaves should carry with plenty of aeration not in
compressed manner.

3. Spreading
Spreading of leaf should be uniform across the length and breadth of the
trough. Bunching of wet leaf should be avoided. Air velocity should be such
that the leaves are not lifted up. Leaf should be handled carefully. Drainage
during spreading must be avoided and the laborers must not be allowed to walk
on the leaf. Withered leaf bruises more easily.

4. Withering (partial removal of moisture)

Withering is carried out to prepare the green tea shoots biochemically and
physically for subsequent manufacturing operations. Withering essentially
consists of storage of green shoots for about 12 to 20 hours with the partial
removal of moisture (known as physical wither) from the leaf. Withering is
accompanied by certain chemical changes (known as chemical wither) which
may affect fermentation and thereby, the quality of the final product. Chemical
wither is essentially a time temperature dependent process. Some of these
changes are dependent onmoisture loss while others are independent.

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 Industrial Visit To Dodabetta Tea Factory

a) Natural Withering: The fresh tea leaves are laid out in thin layers
on tats staked one above another and dried in the fresh air for at least 20
hours.
b) Artificial Withering: The leaves are laid out in layers of up to 20
cm. thick on a mesh. The meshes are placed in a tunnel; through which
warm air mixed with fresh air is forced. This considerably reduces the
total withering time. Around 70% residual moisture suitable for tea
processing of the withered green leaves.

5. Cutting/disruption (size reduction)

Cutting or disruption of tea leaves is done through “Rotor vane”.

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 Industrial Visit To Dodabetta Tea Factory

Rotor-vane is a maceration equipment, which is used as a pre-conditioner for

withered leaf prior to processing in the main CTC Tea machine for black CTC
tea manufacture. It has a positive effect on qualities. Rotor-vane consists of a
cylindrical drum of a diameter of 200 cm (8"), 380 cm (15") or 460 cm (18"),
depending on the capacity. Inside the circumference of the drum, the resistors.

6. Rolling
This machine consists of two separated metal rollers, placed close
together and revolving at unequal speeds, which cut, tear and twist the leaf.
CTC machines are widely used. Rolling is the next step of manufacturing in
which cell membranes are damaged allowing mixing of chemical components
of leaves with enzymes. This technique is also known as maceration. It is
known as preconditioning roll. This roll is usually very gentle. During rolling
the temperature should never be beyond 35ºC (95ºF).

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 Industrial Visit To Dodabetta Tea Factory

7. Fermentation/ oxidation
During fermentation, the oxidation process which had begun during
rolling is continued. Fermentation takes place in separate fermentation rooms,
which need to be kept extremely clean to avoid bacterial infection of the tea. In
present days, Continuous Fermenting Machine (CFM) is widely used for
fermentation in tea industries. It consists of single circuit of trays, top run of
which passes through the fermenting chamber. Trays exposed at the feed end
take their leaf load through a conveyer and are made to travel slowly. The tray
fed up to 15 cm depth with rolled leaf entering the fermenting chamber through
which humidified air is supplied. A spreader and leveller are used to adjust the
spread and height of thickness. As soon as the tea has acquired a copper red
colour, the correct degree of fermentation has been reached, and the process
must be halted by drying. The fermenting chamber can be a single unit or may
consist of modules with arrangement of blowing air across. The fermenting time
can be regulated by adjusting the tray speed.

8. Heating and drying (completion of moisture removal)

There are mainly two types of driers that are in use in CTC tea manufacturing.
They are-
1. ECP (Endless Chain Pressure Drier)
2. VFBD (Vibratory Fluid Bed Drier)

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 Industrial Visit To Dodabetta Tea Factory

In present days, mostly VFBD is used in CTC tea manufacture. Difference

between inlet and outlet temperature should be 90˚F otherwise than it is stewing
and more than its case hardening.

Precautions:
1. Temperature of inlet and exhaust air.
2. Volume of air.
3. Quantity of leaf fed (i.e. thickness of spread).
4. Period of drying (through put time).
5. Fluctuation of temperature.

9. Sorting and grading (fibre removal; grading based on size)

1. The CTC bulk is passed through a fibre extractor and a pre-sorter.
2. Then, from the pre-sorter, the tea goes to the Vibro Screen Sorter.
3. Different grades of CTC tea will come out through different mesh of
Vibro screen sorter.

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 Industrial Visit To Dodabetta Tea Factory

10. Gapping
During the process of sorting and bulking tea picks up moisture and it
reaches above 4%. Before packaging it is detrimental. It is therefore necessary
to final fire the tea in order to bring down the moisture content to about 3%.
This process is known as ‘gapping’. Drying of tea for 10 min at 2200F before
packaging is essential.

11. Packing and transporting

1. Tea should never be forced down by hand.
2. The CTC teas made from withered teas, damage will be more. It should
be handled carefully.
3. Tea should be packed full otherwise oxygen in the free space activate
the enzymes, the quality will deteriorate.
4. During packing moisture percentage, should not be more than 4%,
preferably 3% during packing.

Factors related to quality of CTC

Quality of the end product in any process industry depends mainly on the raw
material and tea is no exceptional. Quality of made tea depends on various
factors:
1. Plucking Standard: Black, Standard plucking.
2. Plucking around: Shorter round of plucking gives good quality tea.
3. Age of the bush
4. Stage from previous pruning
5. Beside those, in the same shoot, the chemical composition of Bud,
1st leaf, 2nd leaf, other leaves, stem etc.

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 Industrial Visit To Dodabetta Tea Factory

Conclusion
By taking the industrial visit as a material of study, understood that
among all the functional areas of management, production is crucial in any
industrial organization. Production is the process by which, raw materials and
other inputs are converted into finished products. Often the terms productions
and manufacturing are used interchangeably. From this industrial visit we
understood the difference between manufacturing and production. We found out
that manufacturing is considered as a process by which only tangible goods are
produced whereas production involves the conversion of inputs into both
tangible and intangible products. The intangible products produced through the
production process in known as services.

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