Fanning Tea leaf grading: All you need to know

The industry of tea is well accustomed to the name of tea leaf grading. It is a method of evaluation for the tea products whether they are in good condition and of their quality.

Fannings or dust is generally the lowest grades for South Asian and Western teas. While the top quality teas contain only the leaves of tea trees which are picked carefully with trained fingertips. The broken tea leaves and the tiny remnants of tea leaves which are formed by crushing and sorting methods are known as fannings. Tea leaves are required to get crushed so that those can be filled into the tea bags by the fanning tea exporters in Kolkata and other cities of the world.

Tea leaf grading:

The grading scheme of tea leaves is determined by the size and wholeness of the tea leaves. Dust, fannings and broken teas are known as orthodox teas which are of a bit different grades. CTC or crush, tear, curl – is the process of making black tea which includes the methods of crushing, tearing and curling the tea leaves into hard, small pallets. Any CTC fanning tea exporters from India offer tea products which are best to consume with sugar and milk.

Why fanning is preferred?

Fanning tea known to produce strong brew and more cups of tea can be produced with fannings over orange pekoe (the highest grade of tea leaves). As the particles are tiny or very small in fannings, in its brewing, a tea infuser is added.

CTC teas consist of tea leaves that are mechanically extracted to identical fannings. The CTC fanning tea suppliers in West Bengal and other states use a special grading system.

What are fannings?

Fannings are the tiny pieces of tea leaves which are the remaining portions after the higher grades of teas i.e. orange pekoe teas are sold. In simple words, fannings are the rejected elements during the manufacturing of high-quality orange pekoe tea.

Fannings with extremely small particles are called tea dust. But this does not mean that these come free of cost! Fannings can still be expensive and enriched with flavor than the cheaper teas.

Traditionally a fanning tea exporter experiences a huge demand for fanning tea in the whole world. As the drinking of tea became popular, it increased the demand for fanning teas.

Why people in Africa and South Asia prefer tea dust? Well, the main reason remains its low cost and strong brew.

Use of fannings:

The most use of the fannings remains in the processing tea bags by any CTC fanning tea exporter from India.
Fanning Grades:
• PF – Pekoe fannings
• OF – orange fannings (used in South America, Africa, and North India)
• FOF – flowery orange fannings (used in Dooars and Assam in India and Bangladesh)
• GFOF – golden flowery orange fannings (Darjeeling tea)
• TGFOF – tippy golden flowery orange fannings
• BOPF – broken orange pekoe fannings (mainly available in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Kenya, South India, Mozambique, China, and Bangladesh)

Have not you tried drinking fanning tea yet? Try a cup of it. You will surely be blown away with its strong flavor.

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