Tea production

This is not exactly the kind of CAS activity I usually have but it was nice, it was something different. With New Years round the corner, we were on a vacation to Kotagiri with friends and Family. Kotagiri is in The Niligiris and it is the ideal location to chill and de-stress. During our trip we came across this small tea production house. It was so small that nobody could imagine how much tea is being produced in it. We went and saw a huge conveyor belt running around and a stairs leading to the ground floor. The smell around was different, good kind of different. The building, as I said, looked very small from the outside but it was amazingly organised inside and well built. The guide there walked us through the tea making process explaining what every machine does and how fresh tea is made. He also explained how different kinds of teas were made and the respective processes and how the waste was recycled and used in their respective fields. In a gist, this is how tea is made: 

Tea leaves are freshly plucked and dried. Due to this, the smell of leaves changes. Drying is important as it increased the caffeine levels and adds flavor to the tea. The tea leaves then pass through a machine which is like a shredder, it breaks them down to promote more oxidation. Fermentation occurs next which is very important for flavor and smell of the tea as it produces more aromatic compounds (finally I see scientific chemistry in really world, Yay!). And then the product is segregated based on size and other criterias of the company.