According to orientation they are under the influence of one or the other monsoon; thus on the east side the best harvest is obtained from the end of June to the end of August and on the west side from February 1 to March 15. While women in saris gather the leaves men in long white robes supervise the progress of the harvest until it arrives at the factory.

If the soul of the garden lies in the hands of the women who harvest, the factory is its heart and brain. Black teas from Ceylon, India or China, which are the ones favored in Europe, are the result of a long transformation of the freshly picked plant: they are in fact fermented teas.

Fermenting tea requires the same painstaking, scientifically measured care and gestures as the alcoholic fermentation of grapes to make wine. Mostly men work in the factory: laborers and technicians in shorts and bare feet fidget in the half-light amid an indescribable clutter of machinery, from which emanates incessant heat and noise.

Black tea processing stages

Withering

Withering involves softening the leaves so that they lose half their water, so that they can then be rolled up without breaking. They are spread in a thin layer on long racks placed on top of each other 20 cm apart, and a current of hot air is circulated between it for 24 hours.

Today in more modern factories the withering is done in tunnels or tanks that allow the operation time to be reduced to only 6 hours. Once withered, the leaves are rolled on themselves to facilitate oxygen absorption.

Rolling

Rolling (rolling), which breaks down the cells of the leaves and releases the essential oils, was once done using the palms of the hands, now replaced by heavy metal discs rotating in the opposite direction inside massive machines, the winding machines. The rolled leaves are then placed on long sieves to separate them according to coarseness and state: whole or broken.

Grading

This is the screening or grading (grading) that in some gardens is still done by hand and allows the leaves to be graded according to black tea grades: in the best gardens the leaves will give, according to the size and sense of coiling:

• Orange Pekoe (O.P., leaves rolled lengthwise and varying in length between 8 and 15 mm)
• Flowery Orange Pekoe (F.O.P.,slightly shorter leaves)
• Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (an F.O.P. in which some leaves have a golden tip)
• Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (T.G.F.O.P., in which all the leaves have the golden tip)

Then instead going qualitatively downward we have the broken leaves (broken) and finally the fanning and dust, leaves reduced to less than a millimeter, which is what we find in the sachets

Fermentation

Next comes the essential operation that gives black tea its color and especially its aroma: fermentation. It is achieved by exposing the leaves to an atmosphere saturated with moisture (90 percent at minimum) after laying them on large concrete, glass or aluminum plates. The air temperature must be carefully monitored and kept between 22º and 28ºC, because even a slight variation toward the hot side would risk giving the tea a burnt taste, and toward the low side to block the fermentation process. This whole process is carried out by the tea maker who must know when to let the fermentation stop according to the effect he wants to achieve.

Drying

The leaves then are dried in a huge machine that acts as a dryer and conveyor belt and are exposed to temperatures below 80ºC for about 20 minutes. Drying, the last stage of tea processing, demands special care and attention. If it were too weak it would compromise the life of the tea, risking making it moldy. If it were too strong, it would deprive it of much of its aroma.