South Korea: Jeonnam Agricultural Technology Institute develops low-cost mass production technology for black tea

(Naju = Yonhap News) Reporter Woonchang Yeo = Machine harvesting tea leaves and semi-automatic machine production Jeddah technology has opened a way to mass-produce low-cost black tea. According to the Jeonnam Provincial Agricultural Technology Institute on the 26th, most of the domestic black tea is produced by hand-made methods by small-scale tea producers. The quality is not uniform and mass production is difficult, so most of the domestic black tea consumption is dependent on imports. The amount of black tea imports is also rapidly increasing from 681 tons in 2012 to 1,492 tons in 2019. The Tea Industry Research Institute of the Agricultural Technology Institute has begun to develop technology to replace such imported black tea. A semi-automatic mechanical production system is used for the entire process from harvesting tea leaves to wiping, rubbing, fermentation, and drying. Compared to the handmade production method, the production volume of black tea is four times more and ...