TEA PRODUCTION IN KENYA

Introduction to tea

- Camellia sinensis is an evergreen plant that grows mainly

in tropical and subtropical climates.
- Tea plants are propagated from seed and cutting; it takes about 4 to 12 years for a tea
plant to bear seed, and about three years before a new plant is ready for harvesting.
- Two principal varieties are used: Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, which is used for most
Chinese, Formosan and Japanese teas, and Camellia sinensis var. assamica, used in Pu-
erhand most Indian teas (but not Darjeeling).
- Within these botanical varieties, there are many strains and modern clonal varieties.
- A tea plant will grow into a tree of up to 16 m (52 ft) if left undisturbed, but cultivated
plants are generally pruned to waist height for ease of plucking.
- Only the top 12 inches of the mature plant are picked. These buds and leaves are
called flushes. A plant will grow a new flush every seven to fifteen days during the
growing season.
- Leaves that are slow in development tend to produce better-flavoured teas.
- Pests of tea include mosquito bugs that can tatter leaves, so they may be sprayed with
insecticides.
- The Tea Industry in Kenya is unique in that it is comprised of two distinct sectors;
o the Plantation or large scale sector and
o the small holder sector
- The Plantation sector is owned by large scale tea producers and companies while the
small holders sector is by small scale growers.
- The small holder sector has registered more than half a million growers who are
located across tea growing areas in the country. The small holder sector factories are
managed by Kenya Tea Development Agency Ltd (KTDA).

The Top 5 Tea Producing Countries

 Production 2011
Country % of World Total % Change from 2010
(metric tonnes)

1 China 1,640,310 metric tonnes 35.13% + 11.77%

2 India 966,733 metric tonnes 20.70% - 2.46%

3 Kenya 377,912 metric tonnes 8.09% - 5.28 %

4 Sri Lanka 327,500 metric tonnes 7.01% - 1.17 %

5 Turkey 221,600 metric tonnes 4.74% - 5.70 %

Sources: FAOSTAT data: 2011 (last accessed by Top 5 of Anything: May 2013)

Tea Growing in Kenya

- The tea growing regions in Kenya are endowed with the ideal climate for tea.
- Agronomic conditions:
o Tropical, volcanic red soils and
o well distributed rainfall ranging between 1200mm to 1400mm per annum that
alternates with long sunny days
o No chemicals are used. Fertilizers are regularly added to replenish soil nutrients.
o Vegetative propagation of high-yielding, well-adapted clones.
o Over 49 varieties so far developed by the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya
(TRFK).
- Production goes on all round the year with two main peak seasons of high crop
between March and June and October and December which coincide with the rain
seasons.
- Kenya tea is grown free of agrochemicals because the ideal environment in which the
tea is grown acts as a natural deterrent to pests infestation and diseases attack.
- Tea is planted in an area of over 157,720 hectares, with production of about 345,817 metric
tonnes of made tea. Over 325,533 metric tonnes exported.

Tea Growing Regions

- The main tea growing areas in Kenya are situated in and around the highland areas on
both sides of the Great Rift Valley; and astride the Equator within altitudes of between
1500 metres and 2700 metres above the sea level.
 - These regions include the areas around Mt. Kenya, the Aberdares, and the Nyambene
hills in the Central Kenya and the Mau escarpment, Kericho Highlands, Nandi and Kisii
Highlands and the Cherangani Hills.

Assign: Importance of tea to Kenyas economy, major tea growing countries

Chemical constituents of the tea leaf

- Fresh leaves contain 74-77% moisture and 23-26% dry matter.
- About half the dry matter is insoluble in water and is made up of crude fiber, cellulose,
proteins, fats and others.
- The soluble part includes about 30 polyphenolic bodies, over 20 amino acids, caffeine,
sugars, organic acids and essential oils.

Caffeine

- Caffeine is a purine derivative, which is 1,3,7-tri- methyl xanthine.

- Caffeine content in black tea is around 3 4% of dry weight.
- It has stimulating property and removes mental fatigue.
- The contribution of caffeine to the infusion is the briskness and creamy property resulting
from the complex formed by caffeine with polyphenols.
- Briskness is a taste and sensation while creaming is the turbidity that develops from a good
cup of tea when cooled.

Tea fibre

- The leaf cell wall, containing cellulostic materials surrounded by hemi-cellulose and a lignin
seal, prevents the penetration of hydrolyzing enzymes.
- The reduced succulence in the matured shoot is believed to be due to structural bonding
between phenolic components of lignin, polysaccharides and coating of cell wall.

Carbohydrates

- The free sugars found in tea shoot are glucose, fructose, sucrose, raffinose and stachyose.
- Maltose in Assam variety and rhamnose in china variety appeared special.
- Pectic substances contain galactose, arabinose, galacturonic acid, rhamnose and ribose.
- Free sugars are responsible for the synthesis of catechins in tea shoot, formation of
heterocyclic flavour compounds during processing of black tea and contributing towards
water-soluble solids in tea liquor.
- Cellulose, hemi-cellulose, pectins and lignins are responsible for the formation of crude
fibre content in black tea.
- Tracer studies using 14C-glucose in detached tea shoot showed that glucose was one of
the precursors of polyphenols in tea.

Amino acids
- Aspartic, glutamic, serine, glutamine, tyrosine, valine, phenylalanine, leucine, isoleucine
and theanine (5-N-ethylglutamine) were found to be the principal amino acids present in
tea leaf.
- Theanine alone contributed around 60% of total amino acid content.
- Asparagine was formed during withering. The amino acids play an important role in the
development of tea aroma during the processing of black tea.
- Volatile carbonyl compounds formed from the amino acids during processing:
Glycine formaldehyde
Alanine acetaldehyde
Valine isobutyraldehyde
Leucine isovaleraldehyde
Isoleucine 2-methylbutanol
Methionine methional
Phenyl alanine phenylacetaldehyde
- Except theanine all amino acids present in tea shoot were biosynthesized using 14C-
glucose, 14C-sodium carbonate and 14C-sodium propionate. Theanine was mainly
synthesized in the root and translocated to the shoot.

Lipids and fatty acids

- The neutral, glyco and phospholipid contents and their fatty acid composition varied in
Assam, China and Cambod varieties and also during different stages of black tea
manufacture. Total lipid contents (%) and total fatty acids (g/g) at different stages i.e.
green leaf, withered leaf, rolled leaf, fermented leaf and black teas are about 6.5, 5.7, 4.5,
4.3 and 2.8 and 9.8, 8.4, 6.6, 4.8 and 3.7 respectively.
- The major fatty acids available in tea are linolenic, linoleic, oleic and palmitic.

Carotenoids

- The four major carotenoids, -carotene, lutein, violaxanthine and neoxanthine were
estimated spectroscopically in different clones.

Organic acids

- Citric, tartaric, malic, oxalic, fumaric and succinic acids were detected in Assam leaf.
- Role of organic acids towards the biochemical influence on the quality of black tea is not
yet reported.

Polyphenolic compounds

- Young green tea shoots are rich in polyphenolic compounds, the largest group the
catechins (flavan-3-ols) constitute up to 30% of the dry weight.
- Camellia sinensis is unique in its range of flavanols.
- Six such compounds are present at high concentrations (>1% dw); (+)-catechin (C), (+)-
gallocatechin (GC), (-)-epicatechin (EC), (-)-epigallocatechin (EGC), (-)-epicatechin-3-gallate
(ECG) and (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). (+)-Catechin-3-gallate (CG), and (+)-
gallocatechin-3-gallate (GCG) have also been found in manufactured green and black teas
but not fresh green leaf and are therefore considered to be products of racemization or
epimerization, caused by the drying process.
- Other related compounds, (-)-epicatechin-3,5-digallate and the 3-methyl gallates of (-)-
epicatechin and (-)-epigallocatechin have been reported in fresh green leaf but their
contribution to the quality characteristics of black tea remains un-investigated.

Factors affecting the composition of tea shoots

Leaf Handling
- After harvesting, leaves must be transported with great care to the factory
immediately to avoid any crushing or other damage. Rough handling may nullify the
efforts of careful plucking. This is because any leaf damage may initiate undesirable
chemical and biochemical reactions at this early stage.
- Green leaves start withering process from the moment it is plucked from the tea bush.
- Overheating leaves causes more quality loss than physical leaf damage.
- Poor-handled leaves turn red due to the oxidation of catechins.
- Black tea made from red leaves have lower TFs content, which means reduction in
quality.

Leaf Age
- Shoots in tea manufacture are composed of a bud and three leaves on average.
- The distribution of the catechins within a shoot varies with the age of leaves.
- The content of total catechins is in the following order:
o young leaves (5.86%)
o old leaves (2.15%)
o stem (0.85%),
- The content of individual catechins also varies with the age of leaves.

Seasonal variation
- The content and distribution of catechins in fresh tea leaves may vary with the
harvesting season.
- Fresh leaves harvested during warmer months contained higher catechin gallate levels
and had greater potential for making high quality black tea than those harvested at
other times of the year.

Harvest method
- Tea leaves are harvested by hand or shear plucking or mechanically from the field.
- The content of polyphenols in tea leaves varies depending on the harvest methods.
- In general, hand plucked fresh tea leaves contain higher levels of phenolic compounds
than mechanically harvested leaves, which are usually more mature and shear plucked
leaves, which are more coarse and injured.
- Furthermore, tea made from hand-plucked leaves was found to be better than that
obtained from shear-plucked leaves with respect to organoleptic evaluation.

Tea leaf variety

- The content of individual catechins in fresh tea leaves varies with the tea clones.
- Distribution pattern of polyphenols varied a great deal among tea clones whereas the
patterns appeared to be more or less fixed within a clone.
- Similarly, total polyphenols content in green leaves showed minimal variations within
the same clone but significant differences among clones.
- The flavan-3-ol composition of GT leaves varied more among Kenyan tea clones, from
52.25 to 73.75 mg equivalent catechin g-1 fresh weight, and either EGC or EGCG was
the dominant flavan-3-ol present in fresh tea leaves.
- Tea clones may have different fermenting characteristics (e.g. slow or fast
fermenting). Poor fermentability of some clones were still green after 90 min
fermentation, implying that they would be more suited to GT production but in BT
production slow and fast fermenting clones were mixed, and the extent of clone
mixing was determined by the balance between yield (production) and quality (value)
desired.

Types of processing
According to the different ways of processing, especially the extent of fermentation, tea
is usually divided into three basic types: green tea (non-fermented), oolong tea (semi-
fermented) and black tea (fully fermented).
The three basic types of tea; have different quality characteristics, including aroma, taste
and color, and appearance. Of the total amount of tea produced and consumed in the
world, 78% is black, 20% is green, and < 2% is oolong tea.
Manufacture of black tea
Steps include; harvesting, withering, rolling, fermentation, firing/drying, sorting and
grading, packaging

Plucking fresh leaves, and storing them until processing

Withering (to dry tea until it reaches 45 - 55% water content;
done in large withering troughs with air blown through the tea.
Takes 6 - 14 hours)

Crushing or rolling (sometimes in powerful machines that crush and tear the buds)
(Cut, tear, curl" or "Crush, tear, curl)

Fermentation (2 hours, in fermentation troughs)

Firing and drying
(to stop fermentation, then dry tea until it reaches 4% water content)

Classification

Packaging and labeling

Withering/ Wilting:

The tea leaves will begin to wilt soon after picking, with a gradual onset
of enzymatic oxidation.
Withering is used to remove excess water from the leaves and allows a very slight
amount of oxidation.
The leaves can be either put under the sun or left in a cool breezy room to pull
moisture out from the leaves.
The leaves sometimes lose more than a quarter of their weight in water during
withering.
The process is also important in promoting the breakdown of leaf proteins into free
amino acids and increases the availability of freed caffeine, both of which change
the taste of the tea.

Disruption: (cutting/crushing)
- Known in the Western tea industry as "disruption" or "leaf maceration", the teas are
bruised or torn in order to promote and quicken oxidation.
- Extensive leaf disruption can be done by kneading, rolling, tearing, and crushing,
usually by machinery.
 - The bruising breaks down the structures inside and outside of the leaf cells and allows
from the co-mingling of oxidative enzymes with various substrates, which allows for
the beginning of oxidation.
- This also releases some of the leaf juices, which may aid in oxidation and change the
taste profile of the tea.

Oxidation / Fermentation:
- For teas that require oxidation, the leaves are left on their own in a climate-controlled
room where they turn progressively darker.
- This is accompanied by agitation in some cases.
- In this process the chlorophyll in the leaves is enzymatically broken down, and
its tannins are released or transformed.
- This process is sometimes referred to as "fermentation" in the tea industry.
- The tea producer may choose when the oxidation should be stopped, which depends
on the desired qualities in the final tea as well as the weather conditions (heat and
humidity).
- For light oolong teas this may be anywhere from 5-40% oxidation, in darker oolong teas
60-70%, and in black teas 100% oxidation.
- Oxidation is highly important in the formation of many taste and aroma compounds,
which give a tea its liquor colour, strength, and briskness.
- Depending on the type of tea desired, under or over-oxidation/fermentation can result
in grassy flavours, or overly thick winey flavours.

Fixation / Kill-green:
- Kill-green is done to stop the tea leaf oxidation at a desired level.
- This process is accomplished by moderately heating tea leaves, thus deactivating their
oxidative enzymes and removing unwanted scents in the leaves, without damaging the
flavour of the tea.
- Traditionally, the tea leaves are panned in a wok or steamed, but with advancements
in technology, kill-green is sometimes done by baking or "panning" in a rolling drum.
- In black teas such as CTC blacks, kill-green is done simultaneously with drying.

Drying:
- Drying is done to "finish" the tea for sale.
- This can be done in a myriad of ways including panning, sunning, air drying, or baking.
- Baking is usually the most common.
- Great care must be taken to not over-cook the leaves.
- The drying of the produced tea is responsible for many new flavour compounds
particularly important in green teas.

Biochemical changes on withering

Withering considerations in relation to manufacture

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
labourers must not be allowed to walk on the leaf. Withered leaf bruises more easily.
The duration and temperature of withering influence the character of made tea. While
low temperature favours development of quality, high temperature may develop colour
at the expense of quality. Unwithered teas are flaky they may be brisk but with poor
quality.
A period of 12-14 hours of wither is essential for completion of chemical wither.
Proper monitoring of withering through use of hygrometers, dry and wet bulb
thermometers, moisture meter, weighment before and after wither, will help in
producing better quality tea.
Effort should be made to wither evenly over the entire period of withering, so that the
rate of loss of moisture proceeds at a uniform rate. This will to allow the chemical
reaction to proceed in the desired manner.
At the end of withering ambient air should be blown to cool down the leaf.
Leaf from the troughs should be taken as and when required and one trough at a time
should be emptied.
Withered leaf must be loosely packed in the basket.
Fermentation

Fermentation commences when leaf cells are broken during rolling and continues when the
rolled leaf is spread on tables or perforated aluminum trays under controlled conditions of
temperature, humidity, and aeration. The process actually is not fermentation at all but a series
of chemical reactions. The most important is the oxidation by polyphenol oxidase of some
polyphenols into compounds that combine with other polyphenols to form orange-red
compounds called theaflavins. The theaflavins react with more units to form the thearubigins,
which are responsible for the transformation of the leaf to a dark brown or coppery colour. The
thearubigins also react with amino acids and sugars to form flavour compounds that may be
partly lost if fermentation is prolonged. In general, theaflavin is associated with the brightness
and brisk taste of brewed tea, while thearubigin is associated with strength and colour.

In traditional processing, optimum fermentation is reached after two to four hours. This time
can be halved in fermenting leaf broken by the Legg cutter, CTC machine, and Rotorvane. In
skip fermentation, the leaf is spread in aluminum skips, or boxes, with screened bottoms.
Larger boxes are used in trough fermentation, and in continuous fermentation the leaf is spread
on trays on a conveyor system. In all of these fermentation systems the leaf is aerated by forced
air (oxygen being necessary for the action of the enzymes), and it is brought by automated
conveyor to the dryer.

Grading/ Classification

- This is done using sieves

When processing the tea is graded into different grades. the major grades are;[3]
Leaves and granules

BP1: Broken Pekoe 1 forms about 1214% of the total production. It has the largest size. The
liquors are a bit light in body but with encouraging flavouring characteristics
PF1: Pekoe Fanning 1. This is about 5860% and forms the bulk of the production. It is made
up of black grainy particles slightly smaller in size than the BP1 grade.
Fngs1 (Fannings): The mixture has traces of black tea and large amount of smallish cut fibres
often sifted out of the primary grades. F1 forms about 34% of the production and quite
useful in tea bags due to its quick brewing, strong flavour and good colour.

Fine particles

PD: Pekoe Dust. It forms 1012% of the production, often black and finer than the PF1 often
with thick liquors and aroma.
Dust: Made up of tiny bits of broken leaf often used to brew strong tea quickly and popular
for the tea bags.
Dust1: This is made up of the smallest particles and form about 46% of the total
production.

- The common grades of CTC tea are as follows

PEK Pekoe

BP Broken Pekoe

BOP Broken Orange Pekoe

BPS Broken Pekoe Souchong

BP1 Broken Pekoe one

FP1 Flowery Pekoe one

OF Orange Fannings

PF Pekoe Fannings

PF1 Pekoe Fannings One

BOPF Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings

PD Pekoe Dust

D Dust

PD Churamani Dust

PD1 Pekoe Dust One

D1 Dust One
 RD Red Dust

FD Fine Dust

SFD Super Fine Dust

RD1 Red Dust one

GD Golden Dust

SRD Super Red Dust

Tea Tasting

- Tea tasting is the process in which a trained taster determines the quality of a
particular tea.
- Due to climatic conditions, topography, manufacturing process, and different clones
of the Camellia sinensis plant (tea), the final product may have vastly differing flavours
and appearance. These differences can be tasted by a trained taster in order to
ascertain the quality prior to sale or possibly blending tea.
- A tea taster uses a large spoon and noisily slurps the liquid into his/her mouth - this
ensures that both the tea and plenty of oxygen is passed over all the taste receptors
on the tongue to give an even taste profile of the tea.
- The liquid is then usually spat back out into a spitoon before moving onto the next
sample to taste.
- The flavour characteristics and leaf colour, size and shape are graded using a specific
language created by the tea industry to explain the overall quality.
- Generally speaking, once the quality has been tasted/ graded, each tea company places
a value on it based on market trends, availability and demand.

Smell- Slurp Spit

Tea Tasting terminologies

Dry Leaf
Infused tea
Liquors
Manufacture of Black Instant tea

Instant tea can be produced from black green or oolong teas which originates from the
same plant camellia sinensis. The difference between various instant teas, is based on
various methods used to produce instant teas from above varieties. Instant tea also can
be produced from the waste/leftovers generated in CTC/ Orthodox leaf tea, hence are
very economical for its process.
The Process
The extract is concentrated under low pressure, and dried to a powder by any of
the processes including freezing, drying, spray-drying and vacuum-drying
Low temperature is used to minimize the loss of flavor and aroma

Manufacturing steps

Extraction of CTC/Orthodox tea

Can be carried out in hot or cold water in batch or continuous extraction systems. Hot
extraction is good for hot tea beverages and cold extraction is preferred for ice tea
beverages. The time and temperature of the extraction to be varied as per the quality
standards laid down for each product final specification.

Clarification

The extracted slurry is subjected to pass through continuous decanters and clarifier to
remove the non soluble suspended matter from the extract. The clarified extract may still
have to be processed to separate or reduce the excess tannin contents which may
hamper the quality of instant tea.

Precipitation

These un-desirable tannins are separated by precipitation process which is also known as
cream separation.

Aroma recovery

The Clean and clarified extract, then passes through Aroma recovery columns for
enriched and distilled aroma collection,

Concentration

Concentration of clear extract is done in multistage Falling Film Evaporator under

vacuum. Blending of tea concentrate with aroma returns the rich flavor of tea.

Drying

The aroma rich concentrate is then spray dried or freeze dried as per the requirements.
Spray drying

- Spray drying requires that the concentrated coffee solutions extracted are
'atomised' to form droplets (10-200 micrometers in diameter) and then sprayed into a
current of heated air (150-300C) in a large drying chamber, this is usually a concurrent air
flow.

- Complete and uniform atomisation is required. The liquid is fed to the middle of a
rotating bowl (peripheral velocity of 90-200m/s). This produces droplets with diameters
of 50-60 micrometers in a uniform spray.

Freeze drying
- Freeze drying takes place by sublimation (ie liquid turning to vapour). The liquid is
slowly frozen in conventional freezing equipment. The frozen material is put under
pressure (610pa) and heated. As long as the pressure in the freeze drier is below the
vapour pressure at the surface of the material, it will sublime directly to vapour without
melting. The vapour needs to be removed by a vacuum pump and condensed on
refrigeration coils. The final drying stage involves evaporative drying (desorption). This is
achieved by raising the temperature to near ambient whilst retaining the low pressure.

Blending and packaging

Packaging of instant tea requires packages made of polypropylene. This helps to

preserve the flavour components diffuse through it. The use of laminates is popular but
more expensive.

Packing
Teas are packed in airtight containers in order to prevent absorption of moisture, which is the principal
cause of loss of flavour during storage. Packing chests are usually constructed of plywood, lined with
aluminum foil and paper, and sealed with the same material. Also used are corrugated cardboard
boxes lined with aluminum foil and paper or paper sacks lined with plastic.
Blended teas are sold to consumers as loose tea, which is packed in corrugated paper cartons lined
with aluminum foil, in metal tins, and in fancy packs such as metallized plastic sachets, or they are sold
in tea bags made of special porous paper. Tea bags are mainly packed with broken-grade teas.
Blending
Tea sold to the consumer is a blend of as many as 20 to 40 teas of different characteristics, from a
variety of estates, and from more than one country. Price is an important factor, with cheap teas
(called fillers) used to round off a blend and balance cost. Blends are often designed to be of good
average character without outstanding quality, but distinctive blendsfor example, with a flavour of
seasonal Ceylon tea or the pungency and strength of Assam teaare also made.