Tea Processing

Green tea undergoes the simplest tea processing of all teas. When green tea undergoes tea processing, the goal is to preserve the fresh flavor of the green tea while retaining fresh green tea leaf's chemical constituents, similar to herbal tea processing.

Green tea processing

How is green tea processing done? The processing of green tea starts with plucking fresh green tea leaves. Then the enzymes that would degrade the green tea need to be inactivated by the process of steaming the green tea leaves or pan firing them. This tea processing step is not only for green tea processing but also for Oolong tea processing and black tea processing.

Next in the process of processing green tea, the green tea leaves are rolled. The purpose of rolling green tea leaves is to squeeze the juices to the surface of the green tea leaf. The green tea leaf is then dried in high temperature air in order to reduce the moisture in the leaf. The processed green tea leaves are then sorted by size.

Sorting green tea leaves is done by sifting them through progressively smaller mesh sieves and the best green tea leaves are collected.  The best green tea leaves are often the largest green tea leaves. The green tea dust is left behind and used to make green tea bags. The green tea leaves are then ready to be packaged and sold to green tea distributors.