On Aug 31, 2:19 am, Joe Doe wrote:

If this were true then, you could mass produce "Darjeeling" at low
elevation at Assam all year round at low production cost. Truly alchemy!
I think you may be able to do it on a proof of principle scale i.e with
careful, selective leaf picking etc. but really do not think you could
really do this on a practical commercial scale. I think the 80:20 rule
sounds right. If your 20:80 view were true then it would be trivial to
produce "high value" tea from low cost of production areas.

Roland, when in my admitted arrogance, I claim that I could do this I
am talking of processing green tea leaf under the proper range of
tightly controlled conditions. Tea manufacture in Assam (or most
other tea countries) is a crude agricultural process using machinery
with little or no ability to maintain the required conditions and
scant regard for their importance. Local character is derived
principally from the unique set of local conditions of temperature
humidity and technique - my point is that accurately simulating this
unique set of conditions in another origin will give the tea character
of the original origin. But to simulate requires proper control -
which requires the sort of process control one would have in a
pharmaceutical factory or perhaps in a margarine factory - certainly
not in a typical (even an atypical) tea factory.

Nigel at Teacraft

Nigel writes:

On Aug 31, 2:19 am, Joe Doe wrote:

If this were true then, you could mass produce "Darjeeling" at low
elevation at Assam all year round at low production cost. Truly alchemy!
I think you may be able to do it on a proof of principle scale i.e with
careful, selective leaf picking etc. but really do not think you could
really do this on a practical commercial scale. I think the 80:20 rule
sounds right. If your 20:80 view were true then it would be trivial to
produce "high value" tea from low cost of production areas.

Roland, when in my admitted arrogance, I claim that I could do this I
am talking of processing green tea leaf under the proper range of
tightly controlled conditions. Tea manufacture in Assam (or most
other tea countries) is a crude agricultural process using machinery
with little or no ability to maintain the required conditions and
scant regard for their importance. Local character is derived
principally from the unique set of local conditions of temperature
humidity and technique - my point is that accurately simulating this
unique set of conditions in another origin will give the tea character
of the original origin. But to simulate requires proper control -
which requires the sort of process control one would have in a
pharmaceutical factory or perhaps in a margarine factory - certainly
not in a typical (even an atypical) tea factory.

Nigel: I hope you aren't apologizing, for there are situations where a
certain level of arrogance is needed to get anything done.

Having visited a few tea factories, I have an inkling of what you're
talking about. Plus, conditions vary, and no two factories are alike.
But I wonder if you could answer the following, even with
back-of-the-envelope precision:

- By what factor would a factory's total cost of production rise if it
instituted, say, margarine-level process control?

- Would the improvement in process control require a dramatic rise in
energy use?

- Do you know of tea factories that practice, or even approach, that
level (shall we call it one Oleo)?[1]

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html
[1] equals how many standard deviations?

In article . com,
Nigel wrote:

On Aug 31, 2:19 am, Joe Doe wrote:

Local character is derived
principally from the unique set of local conditions of temperature
humidity and technique - my point is that accurately simulating this
unique set of conditions in another origin will give the tea character
of the original origin.

Nigel at Teacraft

I may have misunderstood your original point

My understanding was that you were saying appropriate processing would
trump leaf character as determined by locale. My own view is that say
in Assam with heavely rained on washed out leaves you would have a hard
time producing a tea with good Assam character let alone Darjeeling
character with the best of processing control.

I will fully acknowledge that growing to processing is very rudimentary
and can be much improved because most tea is low value, and occurs in
historically non technologically cutting edge areas of the world.

As a consumer I am glad you and others are driving innovation to improve
quality.

Roland

In article ,
Lewis Perin wrote:
- Do you know of tea factories that practice, or even approach, that
level (shall we call it one Oleo)?[1]

Lew, I don't know how you will determine if a factory is at one Oleo
(Parkay tile floors?), but I know what to say when you see it:

"Nice spread you've got there."

To veer uncharacteristically into relevance, right now I'm drinking a
Korean green called sulloc cha, where "sulloc" apparently means sparrow's
tongue. That seems to have the same meaning as in Chinese teas in that
the tea consists of single buds or very young leaves. The taste is
something like a sencha but without the extremity of flavor which I find
in most reputable Japanese teas (I use the term "reputable" rather than
"good" because I don't usually like that extremity). It resembles what
I imagine an unfried long-jin to taste like. Liquor is a pale green.

Rick - writing from Wisconsin, where oleo is taboo.

(Richard Chappell) writes:

In article ,
Lewis Perin wrote:
- Do you know of tea factories that practice, or even approach, that
level (shall we call it one Oleo)?[1]

Lew, I don't know how you will determine if a factory is at one Oleo
(Parkay tile floors?), but I know what to say when you see it:

"Nice spread you've got there."

[...]

Rick - writing from Wisconsin, where oleo is taboo.

Right, I've heard it just doesn't churn right in the traditional
preparation of Wisconsin butter tea. But maybe if you tried barley
instead of maize...?

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

On Aug 31, 6:49 pm, Lewis Perin wrote:

- By what factor would a factory's total cost of production rise if it
instituted, say, margarine-level process control?

Difficult to estimate but as Unilever - bulk (and ultra efficient)
producer of both tea and margarine - has not yet fully embraced the
concept, let us say for the moment it is cheaper to exploit the
agricultural process route. Margarine making manages to derive a very
consistent final product from a very wide range of different raw
materials (palm oil, canola oil, coconut oil, even sheep tallow) -
doing this by taking the raw material back to its basic units and
rebuilding it under well understood and reliably held process
condititions. By contrast, an average tea factory even if given a
consistent raw material, will produce a very wide range of final
products from time to time as the process is poorly controlled or
monitored and random and diurnal fluctuations in ambient conditions
will have a greater effect on the outcome than the manager will care
to admit. Hence he will bulk today's tea with yesterday's, his
achieved price at auction will fluctuate widely, and tea packers will
blend from 20 or more different origins to achieve their consistent
branded product - imagine a margarine packer blending margarines
imported from 20 origins or even from two!

A tea factory is now technically possible that will take in green
leaf, split it down to its basic chemical components, and rebuild a
standard and consistent tea (be it liquid extract, soluble powder, or
reconstituted onto a tea leaf, or even onto a cellulose imitation
leaf). It may not suit us tea purists but, as the field labor becomes
scarce to pluck those 27 billion tea bushes every 10 days, believe me
companies like Tata and Lipton will be moving in that direction with
the big mechanical harvesters and the stainless steel food
engineering.

- Would the improvement in process control require a dramatic rise in
energy use?

I would expect not in terms of kW expended per kg of tea - tea
manufacture is energy profligate. Currently it takes more energy to
make a kg of tea than to make a kg of steel! (source: Asian Institute
of Technology - Small and Medium Scale Industries in Asia: Energy &
Environment - Tea Sector, 2002). And, to make a tonne of tea in a
typical tea factory you need to move 2,000 tonnes of air!! (source:
Tea: Cultivation to Consumption, ed. KC Willson & MN Clifford,
1992). Modern food factories tend to be more enery efficient than
this!

- Do you know of tea factories that practice, or even approach, that
level (shall we call it one Oleo)?[1]

No, not yet, though Japanese green tea production is about as
automated and process controlled as it gets. Japanese green tea
manufacture has developed in technical isolation from the rest of the
world and while cross fertilization of ideas is possible actual
transfer of machinery has not occurred as their process type is so
different from the C19 colonial British style still in use around the
rest of the world. One of two examples of physical transfer I have
seen have not been successful.

Nigel at Teacraft

Nigel wrote:
... much of accepted tea knowledge
falls into the "emperor's new clothes" category and deserves frequent
challenge.

Thank, Nigel - I'm glad to hear a legitimate expert say that! As a
reasonably educated and experienced scientist, I find that a good
quarter of putatively scientific reportage in even respectable papers
and magazines is just wrong, and close to half beyond that is so
deleted, distorted or generalized as to give a travesty of the cited
experts' intentions. In a field as ancient, secretive, mythologized and
economically important as tea, the ratios are perhaps worse. Better to
brew, drink, enjoy and follow the Buddha's advice to the Kalamas.

-DM