Tea Kneading Equipment
Kneading refers to the use of rubbing, twisting method, so that the tissue of tea leaves cell tissue is broken, the extruded tea juice will adhere to the surface of the tea leaves, and make the leaves tight into strips and the finished tea easy to brew the tea primary production process.
There are three main purposes of kneading tea leaves: firstly, to break the cellular tissues of tea leaves, so that the tea juice can be easily brewed out, which is conducive to the formation of tea soup taste; secondly, to knead the tea leaves to reduce the gap between the tea leaves, tighten the leaves into strips and increase the weight of the tea leaves; finally, the overflowing tea juice can come into contact with the air and undergo oxidation to promote chemical changes and increase the aroma of the tea leaves.
There are three major types of equipment that can complete the tea kneading and extrusion process, namely, twisting machine, kneading and cutting machine and bag kneading machine. The types of equipment used are different according to the characteristics of tea leaves and the processing process. Kneading machine is the most widely used, and most of the tea leaves need kneading machine for initial shaping; kneading and cutting machine is mainly used for the processing of black crushed tea, and the tea leaves processed by kneading and cutting machine have small particles and high broken rate of leaf cell tissue; bag kneading machine is a special equipment for making oolong tea in Taiwan, Fujian and other regions.
Kneading follows the traditional disk type kneading machine, mainly consists of three parts: kneading barrel, kneading disc and kneading cover. The principle is to use the crank linkage mechanism to drive the kneading barrel to make a plane circular motion on the kneading disc, and the integrated action generated by the kneading barrel cover, kneading disc and rib bone causes the leaf cell tissues to be destroyed, so as to complete the kneading process.
Single-action tea kneading machine, the kneading disc is fixed on the frame and the kneading barrel makes a rotary motion. The pressure of tea kneading is adjusted by spiral pressure on the lid of the kneading barrel, which is characterized by manual control of the kneading pressure, simple operation, high requirements for manual kneading experience, simple structure and good adaptability. It is the most commonly used tea kneading machine nowadays. The biggest feature of double-action tea kneading machine is that the kneading barrel and the kneading disc do relative plane rotary movement at the same time when the machine is working, and the kneading effect is better than that of single-action tea kneading machine, which is generally used in the kneading of black tea.
Pressurized tea kneading machine, through different pressurization devices to achieve the change of pressure of the kneading barrel cover, common ones are heavy block pressurization, pneumatic pressurization, gantry pressurization, etc.
Gantry pressurized tea kneading machine
Pneumatic Pressurized Tea Kneading Machine
Tea leaf kneading unit. It consists of several ordinary kneading machines in a group, and controls a single tea kneading machine to realize the same time interval and tea output of each kneading machine. Its characteristic is to adapt to the work beat of the production line, and is suitable for large tea factories.
Kneading and cutting machine. Black crushed tea kneading and cutting equipment, there are two types, one is the disk type kneading and cutting machine, the traditional black crushed tea processing in the application, is the ordinary disk type kneading machine kneading disk prismatic bone into the form of prismatic plate, and in the center of which a metal cone is added, the processing process to take a number of short time kneading and cutting, multiple sieving to take the material method; the second is the modern method in the equipment, there are CTC machine, Lotofan machine, hammer cutting machine, Babolat machine, etc.
Moonlight type kneading machine. Kneading equipment for oolong tea and bag seed tea. Developed in Taiwan, introduced and applied in Fujian tea area. It consists of kneading disc, kneading bowl, transmission mechanism and frame. Its characteristics are low rate of broken tea during processing, good heat dissipation and tea leaves are not easily stewed.
Kneading machine. Oolong tea kneading equipment, tea production process of kneading is commonly known as "ball tea", the role of kneading is to make the leaf-like tea leaves rolled into particles. Including kneading disc, barrel and bracket, the bottom of the bracket has a rubber pad, the bottom of the rubber pad is spaced with a number of through-slots, the kneading disc is fixed on the inside of the bracket, the barrel is fixed above the kneading disc, the barrel is set inside the barrel through the shaft driven by the mixing blade.
Continuous tea kneading machine. A number of experts and scholars have studied chain continuous type and drum continuous tea kneading machines. Experiments have shown that the intrinsic quality of tea processed by these machines does not change, and the production efficiency is increased, but the bar formation rate is not as good as that of the traditional disc-type kneading machine. The birth of continuous tea kneading machine plays a very strong role in guiding the development of kneading processing machinery, but these results still have certain defects in the practical application of production, and still need to continue the research and improvement.
【Tips
How to do kneading shape the different flavors of oolong tea?
According to the lightness or heaviness of the kneading, tea leaves are often divided into three types: light kneading is what people call "strip", medium kneading is what people call "hemisphere", and heavy kneading is what people call "global".
If the kneading is light, the tea is clearer, like the style of a violin; if the kneading is heavy, the tea is lower, like the style of a cello. The lightness or heaviness of the kneading is determined by the amount of pressure and length of time applied during the kneading. Traditional kneading uses manual kneading on a mat board, while modern kneading uses a kneading machine. When heavy kneading is needed, a cloth is used to wrap the tea green into a ball, then one hand holds the head of the cloth towel, the other hand rubs the cloth ball in the same direction and makes it roll, so that the "cloth ball" is kneaded tighter and tighter to a degree, set aside and let it cool down and solidify its shape. After kneading a group of several balls, open them one by one to loosen the tea green, heat them up and then perform the cloth kneading again, so again and again, until they are kneaded into the required shape and tea properties. This method of kneading is called "cloth kneading", also called "group kneading", which is a medium-heavy kneading practice.