Kirimetiya Tea Factory

Our production process of black tea is completely done within our factory premises. We have most of the latest machinery equipped and dedicated workforce to keep up with industry standards of modern tea production facilities. We have the capacity of producing an average of 35,000kgs to 60,000kgs of made tea per monthly basis, which largely depends on the supply of Green tea leaves. We purchase best quality green tea leaves from local cultivators around Kandy district. Also we have our own tea gardens. We prefer quality over quantity when it comes to quality of the tea leaf. We also offer fertilizers and other financial facilities to our Tea leaf suppliers to encourage supply of quality leaf.

Withering

Once the plucked Tea Leaves arrive at the factory, leaves are spread evenly on Troughs. Depending on the moisture present in leaves, conditioned air is circulated in Trough units, hot air is also used when necessary. This process takes place for 10 to 14 hours, until the leaves are properly withered. This reduces moisture in leaves and softens it to a rubbery feel, which is ideal for Rolling.

Fermentation

Leaf particles collected from Roll-Breaking are evenly spread in the Fermentation area. Due to oxidization of enzymes in tea leaves, leaf color changes from green to a coppery brown. Temperature of the fermentation area has to be controlled and kept cooler. In average it takes 2 hours for this process to complete, which is decided upon the color & aroma of fermented leaf.

Rolling

Withered leaf is twisted using Roller machines. This makes leaf cells come in contact with oxygen and initiates natural chemical reactions needed for black tea manufacturing. After that Roll-Breaker machcines are used to seperate twisted smaller leaf particles, which also helps reduce heat buildup. Larger leaves are sent back to Rollers. Usually this process repeats four times.

Drying

Fermented leaf are passed on to the Drier, which directs heated air and extracts the moisture left on leaf. This stops the further continuation of the fermentation process by disabling enzymes in the leaf. Also extracting moisture is critical, as moisture can affect the tea during the storage period. This process takes 20-30 mins depending on the type of Drier.

Packing

Once a grade of sorted tea has been collected to it's required packing quantity, it will be moved to the Packing section. Where the tea will be bulked and packed into multi walled paper sacks with inner aluminium foil to avoid moisture or anyother contaminents. The bags are labeled with details such as tea grade, selling mark, weight ..etc. This is the final product that's dispatched.

Sorting

Dried Tea is sent to the Sifting section, consisting of variety of machines with different sized meshes to sort teas into almost 15 grades, which are graded mostly depending on the size and appearance. Also there are machines to extract fiber, stalk and dust particles. It is a long process as to keep up with industry standards, each grade has to be sorted true to the grade and well cleaned.