Crush, tear, curl

Crush, tear, curl (sometimes cut, tear, curl) is a method of processing tea leaves into black tea in which the leaves are passed through a series of cylindrical rollers with hundreds of sharp teeth that crush, tear, and curl the tea into small, hard pellets. This replaces the final stage of orthodox tea manufacture, in which the leaves are rolled into strips. Tea produced using this method is generally called CTC tea or mamri tea.

Black tea produced using the CTC method
Tea leaf rolling machine, Munnar Tea Museum in Kerala

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