How Sencha is produced in an in-house factory

Today, we are going to make Sencha in our newly acquired in-house Sencha factory. The collected tea from the farm will be gathered here as soon as we finish harvesting because we don't want the tea to get oxidized since what we want to make is Sencha. The tea then will be steamed through a mushiki. The leaves are steamed to halt the oxidizing and fermentation of enzymes on the leaves, preserve their good color, and remove the grassy odor. The length and temperature of the steaming process is a key determinant in the tea's flavor, aroma, and color, and needed to be adjusted based on the tea cultivars. Then, the leaves go through a rough rolling machine, sojuki. This process removes 50-60% water on the tea leaves. This machine gently rolls the leaves while being exposed to dry, hot air from a pan to remove moisture. Sometimes, we need to feel the leaves to measure its moisture. After this, the leaves go through the next process, junenki, twisting rolling machine, where the leaves are gently rolled with a large brush in a circular motion to reduce the water level and breaking down the cells of the tea leaves. Since the tea leaves are still relatively high in moisture and uneven in size and shape, they are rolled while having a hot and dry air blown on them during chojuki, needle rolling machine. They are then dried and disentangled, ready for final rolling. The tea leaves start to take on a more needle-like appearance. To give the tea leaves their characteristic needle shape, they are rolled in one direction only, similar to the action of manual rolling, while further reducing moisture content. This process is called seijuki, detail rolling machine. Finally, the leaves will be perfectly dry using hot air drying machine during the kansoki, dryer. This allows long-term storage and further draws out their distinctive aroma.