Sortex Tea Color Sorter

Tea color Sorter Complete Guide for Importers

Are you searching for the detailed guide for tea color sorter?

Don’t worry!

Read this guide to make you well aware of Tea color sorting machines.

No doubt this content will help you to get knowledge about all the things relevant to the sorting process.

 What is the color sorter? Why we use it and all the details about the components of tea color sorter etc.

If you want to sort your tea precisely by sorting machine then read this brief guide.

Chapter 1: What is Tea Color sorter?

Chapter 2: Things you must know before using Tea color sorter

Chapter 3: Why Tea Color Sorter in Tea Processing

Chapter 4: Major problems in the sorting process

Chapter 5: Sorting Machine components and related accessories

Chapter 6: Things you need to keep in your mind before buying tea color sorter machine

Chapter 1: What is Color sorter machine?

The color sorter is an optical color sorter machine it is based on micro distinctive technology to sort different tiny particles like grain, rice, coffee beans, and tea flakes.

1.1        What’s tea color sorter

Tea color sorter is a technical machine helps to identify the defects of tea leaves according to size, shape, and color. It helps to diagnose all defects from the tea flakes with high-resolution CCD cameras.

Double layer or double sided tea color sorting machine helps to raise the sorting performance level and decrease the damage ratio of tea leaves.

There are different shapes of tea leaves and stems.

If you want to identify defects precisely according to color shape and size the use tea color sorting machine help you to diagnose defected particles from raw material.

1.2 Advantages of Tea Color Sorter

Tea color sorter helps to maintain the standard quality with a high precision rate.

Sortexgroup provides different sorting solutions for black tea and green tea flakes.

They are offering a range of optical sorters which fulfill all the requirements of the high level of customers.

§  Productivity

Tea color sorter helps to enhance the productivity level with minimum manual operating skills.

I know you don’t understand how to install this sorting machine don’t worry sorting company provides full-time training of installation and operating of machinery.

Another benefit you will get by sorting through optical sorting machines you can maintain the settings of your machinery from remote locations.

You can have consistent production stream even in the harshest environment.

§  Easy to Operate

You will see a lot of features of tea color sorter; unique U type channel helps to sort tea particles precisely.

Nothing too crazy, I just want to show you tea color sorting machines help you to provide high throughput automatically and protect from damage rate.

Tea color sorter performs a simple operation; its structural design is very easy to understand and helps to perform precise sorting.

In short, you can say electrical color sorter is the human understandable machine with attractive GUI (Graphical User Interface).

§  Efficiency and accuracy

Tea color sorter is one of the best machines designed for reliable and stable sorting process.

Also, it has an additional feature of the cooling system to improve the working life of the color sorter machine.

It has a very optimized and customizable structure according to the requirement of the products, it helps to reduce the complexity of the process and improve the reliability of the machine.

§  Remote managed

All the technical features of color sorting machines make them more useful.

No doubt the exclusive design of broadening sorting chamber can solve the problem of partial tea by the high pressure of swirling air.

This remotely managed sorter helps to increase the output ratio and reduce the crashed rate during the whole process of tea sorting.

The most important thing is it automatically operates with minimum operating skills and you can maintain from remote locations.

Its efficient mechanism maintains the quality level in a harsh environment. 

§  Cloud software

What do you think how cloud software works in color sorting process?

If you don’t know first learn what’s the cloud system basically.

Cloud system is a term which refers to different applications, software, and services developed for the users according to the requirements via the internet from specific servers which are called cloud system provider’s servers.

If you understand what the cloud software then continues reading cloud computing system helps to regulate all the sorting process online.

Tea color sorter is also based on cloud computing technology, in a way you can monitor the sorting process online.

The most amazing thing regarding cloud object link system its total online system and a free upgrade when updates required.

§  Performances and maintenance

You know DSP +FPGA both are the top international sorting process techniques to make tea color sorter more efficient and precise.

 It makes the whole process more accurate and easy to maintain, also the light difference color sorting model makes the carryover rate 1:1.

Chapter 2: Things you must know before using Tea color sorter

When anyone wants to start the process of sorting people make a lot of mistakes even it gets disappointed to settle down those issues.

Can you guess what that mistake is?

No?

You need to keep one thing in your mind always learn about the basis of the specific thing like history, what was the origin, classification, and types etc.

§  History of the tea trade

Do you want to get the secret when and where the tea is discovered?

Of course yes!

It’s a really interesting question everyone wants to know the answer.

Tea’s origin story is a myth or a fact it is a philosophical concept or spiritual history.

According to China’s ancient people, the history of tea started in 2737 B.C.E when an Emperor named Shen Nong who is the skilled leader and scientist suddenly discovered tea.

It was an accident while the emperor boiling water in a garden and a leaf of tea fell into the pot, and the emperor checked the taste of tea first time.    

Emperor enjoyed that drink and started research on tea plant and finally discovered tea’s medicinal characteristics & properties. 

Whatever the founder of tea in China or India now it spread all around the world but at that time there was no concept of tea color sorter to sort tea flakes.

Tea is nowadays the most famous beverage after simple water but now we have the option to get high-quality tea particles with color sorting machines which are totally according to the food safety rules.

Main Tea Growing Regions in China 

In China, tea production is very common for thousands of years but all the areas are not suitable for tea production.

Cold areas are not recommended for the plantation and growth of tea, the southern area of China is famous for the dense growth of tea growing in the world.

Tea Growing Regions in South West of China

This is the oldest tea region in China in which Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou are famous and the southeastern parts of Tibet.

If you read the history of tea you might get the concept tea is originated from this specific area.

Famous Teas of southwest China region

• Dianhong black tea
• Aged Shai Hong black tea
• Ripe and raw pu’er tea
• Mengding yellow tea,
• Duyun Maojian green tea.

Tea Growing Regions in South of China

This is the area where the growth of tea is very common as climatic conditions; soil type is suitable for growth.

The region produces medium and highly oxidizing tea in Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan, and Taiwan.

There are some famous types of tea in the South region in China

Liu Bao dark tea

Black tea

Oolong tea.

Oolong is especially very high-quality tea type people of the region mostly use this type. 

§  Classification of Tea in the World

Tea particles classified according to the country and origin there are six main classifications of tea in the world.

• Green tea (fixed but not oxidized)
• Yellow tea (fixed but not oxidized)
• White tea ( lightly oxidized)
• Oolong tea (Semi oxidized, 25-80% oxidized)
• Black tea (100% fully oxidized)
• Pu-erh ( it’s always fermented)

Basically, tea classified during the manufacturing process and discovered three types of categories black tea (fermented) green tea (unfermented) and oolong or pouchong (semi-fermented)

Tea color sorting companies try to classify and grade all types of tea particles and provide better quality output.

Green tea is commonly produced from the Chinese plant and it is usually grown in Japan, Malaysia, and China.

World’s most popular types of tea color sorter  

There are different types of tea color sorting machines available all around the world and every company try to make it better according to the customer’s requirements.

 2-5 stage tea color sorter, mini type tea color sorter, tea processing machines Hons + color sorter and CCD tea color sorter 

Optical Separator

This is very efficient highly technical sorting equipment, normally this machine used to sort selective full bodied crops and eliminate rejected particles from the raw material.

High-resolution speedy cameras capture miner defect and fast pneumatic valves sort the products without any loss.

 Mini Color Sorter

This sorting machine is efficiently designed to use in the agricultural industry and to sort tiny particles especially coffee beans and tea particles.

It can sort and classify all the material and provide at the end very high-quality yield.

Three types of sorting process can be managed with mini color sorter Shape sorting, color sorting, and size sorting.

The sorting machine first keeps a record of original value before passing the particles from the sorting area, after that the CPU will compare the detected value with the basic value.

• STAGE TEA COLOR SORTERS 

These tea color sorters have a unique design of the hierarchical modular structure, helps to design double tier or three-tier structure.

You know 5 stage tea color sorter helps to sort tea flakes with high speed and more precisely.

There are different types of color sorting machines which are classified according to technology, light source, and architecture.

You can check how looks 3 stage color sorting machine

Tea color sorter categorized by technology

(1) Traditional photoelectric technology tea color sorter
(2) CCD camera tea color sorter
(3) Infrared technology based tea color sorter
(4) X-ray technology based tea color sorter

Tea color sorter categorized by light source

(1) fluorescent tube light source color sorter
(2) LED light tea color sorter
(3) Microwave light source technology based color sorter

Chapter 3: Why Tea Color Sorter is important in Tea Processing

Every tea manufacture company used different sorting techniques to provide high-quality standards. 

Specific conditions and gravity helps to separate and grade tea particles.

Modern methods of tea sorting by tea color sorter

There are different outstanding updated tea color sorting techniques.

AUTO BATCH WEIGHER

If you need to sort and classify your grains automatically then auto batch weigher is not a bad option.

Tea particles supposed to fell into an elevator, hopper, and conveyor of automatic batch weigher.

This method helps you to weigh grains automatically with an accurate & reliable result.

Let’s check how batch weigher works

JUMBO FIBRE EXTRACTOR

Tea particles and foreign material are differentiated on the basis of moisture level with the help of static electricity.

Jumbo fiber extractor machine enhances the quality of grains by the electrostatic effect of the heating process.

BENTON DENSITY SORTER

Benton Density tea color Sorter separates sand, dust particles from the tea remove the foreign material and grade the tea flakes.

This sorting machine totally works according to the comparison of the density of the product particles.

VIBRO SCREEN TEA COLOR SORTER

It is a self-balancing machine that has a specific arrangement, consists of 7 decks.

Stainless steel material is used according to the user’s requirements.

Vibro screen tea sorter is very efficient machinery it helps to screen out all faulty products from the raw material to get high-quality yield.

PUCCA TEA COLOR SORTER

This is color sorting machinery based on the vibratory motion for Orthodox and CTC.

Galloping motion is the special quality of pucca tea color sorter such motion is commonly not available in other sorting machines. This sorting equipment helps to protect the tea particles from shuffling and to become grayish.  

§  Precautionary measures for tea sorting

Tea sorting doesn’t mean color sorting or shape sorting of tea flakes it’s a complete sorting process to get high-quality yield.

• There are three main stages of the whole sorting process first stage is cleaning, plucking, and

Different machines involved in the complete sorting mechanism, to remove bacterial contamination and dust particles you need to keep in your mind temperature and moisture control measures.

• A dry environment is not suitable for bacterial growth. Tea color sorting process is easily completed in a dry  
• Avoid wet place and rainy season to avoid bacterial growth and also helps to make the tea material fresher.

Quality Evaluation of Tea

Quality evaluation means the proper check up from chemical components; it is also an inspection of the aroma of tea leaves.

Quality evaluation is compulsory to avoid any type of dangerous particles in the raw material. 

In Chinese countries, tea quality is measured by the human sensory test. Another way you can try to evaluate the quality of the tea is the infrared ray detection system.

Keep one thing in your mind tea color sorter is used to sort tea particles according to safety standards.

                   I.            Sensory quality test

First and foremost way of observation is to test with the human senses like shapes and color of the tea leaves.

Another most important quality test is the appearance of tea flakes, well twisting condition grade tea leaves on grade 1.  

Color is another important factor to estimate the quality level of tea flakes.

You can check the outer quality of tea leaves as well as the inner quality of leaves.

To analyze the quality of tea flakes precisely, keep in your mind the ratio of taken samples, hydro temperature and time of soaking wet must be standardized in all measurements.

                 II.            Instrumental Evaluation

Before using tea color sorter you can test your material with infrared rays this test will provide you the quick and efficient result as compare to a sensory test.

You can check the freshness of tea leaves from this method also you can get the detail of crude tea and fiber ratio.

Instrumental evaluation makes your vision more clear to select best tea color sorting machine.

What Makes the Process of Tea Sorting and Grading Important?

Most interesting thing you need to focus all the tea plants looks similar in the garden but have different leaf size and flavors.

But by the use of tea color sorter, you can get best sorted and graded tea flakes.

How Tea Manufacturing Started

Can you imagine people of ancient times believed that no sorting process exists in this world?

Gradually people change their mind according to the business requirements and different techniques come into use for the manufacturing, sorting, and grading of tea.

Sorting is basically a type of mechanical process.

The number of tea lovers increases with the passage of time in the whole world, tea manufacturing companies wants to provide high quality, hygienic tea at a reasonable price.

Sortex provides the best grades of tea with the best color sorting machines according to the food safety conditions.

Why Sorting is done by tea sorting machines

The main purpose of the sorting process is to classify tea flakes according to the color, size, and shape of the particles.

In ancient times sorting was just used to remove foreign material and big broken leaves, and you were needed to perform all the tasks manually.

At that time pincers were the best recognizable tool for removing long and big tea stalks.

These days trends changed all the sorting process became automated, electronic sorting machines helps to classify the raw material.

Importance of Grading

The whole system of tea grading was organized for presenting the superiority of tea leaves; this industry is used for enhancing tea trades.

China provides the best sorting solution for sorting tea.    

Basis of Grading

Grading sorting system can be of many types, number levels are used for grading tea leaves.

You can check 1 stand for the highest grade of tea flakes.

All the grading scales can be represented between the numbers of 1 and 9, the specific number is allotted according to the shape and color of the leaf.

Some of the special countries like Japan and Taiwan use additional terms for grading is called fannings.

Different Tea Grades

Can you guess what different tea grades are?

No?

Then keep reading about the grades of tea.

There’re different quality grades of tea it can be broken leaf, whole leaf, and dusty leaves.

Grading of tea leaves depends on subgrades like broken leaf and dust are maintained under CTC manufacturing process.

Grades of tea are not standardized globally it may vary according to the environmental conditions and origin.

You need to keep in your mind grades of tea doesn’t necessary to indicate the quality or flavor.

There’re different factors included according to the country or region like:

1. Variety of tea
2. Manufacturing and harvesting process
3. Specific flush picking
4. Leaf size or shape

Most of the regions consider the size of tea leaves as grades.

How does Tea color sorter work?

To meet your constantly increasing requirements of tea color sorting manufacturers adopt hawk eye recognition technology which can acquire and operate at high speed.

You can accurately identify the color difference and remove same color and dark color stalk.

It can support you to realize the grade classification based on the slight color difference of bud.

It can also sort the tea particles according to the size, length, thickness, one bud one leaf, one bud two leaves, removing golden tips, removing white tips etc   

Intelligent cloud-based tea color sorter can infinitely integrate different kinds of tea color sorting standards; different sorting modes can be shared and saved.

 Intelligent circulatory system precisely separate stalk, flaky leaf and buds and ensures each layer can set sorting standards.

After complete processing process, you can get finished products, dark stalk, and light stalk.

You can select tea colors without any complex operation.

Most importantly it consumes just 33% energy and very low pressure of air.    

You can use tea color sorter anytime because it is super silent with a high switching frequency.

Tea color sorter working

The first step of the tea sorting process is the input of material by hopper and vibratory feeder spread to the full width of the conveyor.

Secondly, High-resolution CCD cameras are placed to permit the machinery to identify the desired or rejected material.

Then the tea particles come to the ejection zone, custom detection zone is totally decided according to the flake size of the material.     

Once your material comes to the ejection process there are two ways of ejection.

• Downward ejection
• Upward ejection

Chapter 4: Major problems in the sorting process

Do you want to get rid of the critical problems during the sorting process?

Well, of course, you do.

Now the real question is how to avoid a major problem in the sorting process by tea color sorter.

Let’s look at different problems like Stalk extraction and graying of tea etc.

Stalk extraction

Drawing out of stalk from tea is a very common problem in the sorting process.

But now the question arises how can you do it?

Stalk free tea is formed by fine plucking of tea leaves, avoiding severe treatment of tea leaf processing.

This procedure and techniques are very expensive most of the time. Red stalk removal is very necessary. 

  https://youtu.be/P9X0mVByevE

Greying of tea

Greyness is the problem which scientists found a large problem of the sorting process. Normally in the market people loved to have tea for color strength quality and efficient drink.

Keep one thing in your mind no skill can produce high-quality tea with above qualities if you choose poor manufacturers then it’s compulsory they turned your good quality tea leaves into the bad leaf.

Greyness is basically the loss of bloom, unsuccessful production of bloom leads to laziness and dullness.

Greyness

greyness is particularly likely to occur during sorting and may be caused by one of the following factors.

• Tea particles get caught in sagging meshes in the sorting machine and are abraded through the movement of the trays.
• Blunt knives in the cutter and some older types of machine break, rather than cut, the tea. This not only produces excess dust but also causes greying. Fast running cutters too tend to cause greyness.
• Excessive handling of the product also creates greyness.
• The tea readied for sorting should have a moisture content of between 3 and 5%. Moisture above 5% causes greyness.
• Over-sorting quickly causes greyness because of the continuous rubbing and striking action of the particles against the trays. A leaf’s varnish is easily removed in this manner.
• Excessive rolling may also cause greyness.
• Tea leaf fed into a sorter from an incorrectly placed hopper is subject to striking action that also removes the outer varnish.

Chapter 5: Sorting Machine components and related accessories

Advance cameras, fluorescent and halogen lighting, high-speed ejectors, and uniform feeders make your optical sorter more efficient. You can get additional accessories if any damage during the sorting process. 

6.1 Main Component of Tea Color Sorter

There are different components of tea sorting machine which help you to make color sorter more efficient and reliable.

Feeding System

I found feeding system is very important in tea color sorter machine.

I want you to know all the components included in the feeding system and tell you how they are useful in sorting process.

Tea flakes are taken into the hopper by vibratory feeders, vibration helps to make the flow of grains automatically in a constant speed.

Grains hasten at a steady speed through the chutes and get sorted by the photoelectric detection.

 A high-resolution CCD camera and LED light system presented all grainy particles in very clear optical sorting zone.

The real functionality of the feeding system is the selection of raw materials and differentiates according to the size, color, and shape.

In addition to that feed, hopper controls the vibration level and adjusts the speed of vibrator according to color sorter production control.

What affects the accuracy of color selection in color sorter?

The humidity of grains especially in tea flakes and rice affects with slide chute. Also, adhesion phenomena affect badly on the precision of color selection.

However, heating and drying functions help to manage the sorting process in humid conditions.

Optical System

Optical color sorting system is the foundation of color sorting mechanism, here are I am going to tell you some basic components related to an optical system like:

• Light Source
• The high-Resolution CCD camera
• LED light source
• Electronic control system
• Supporting accessories

Tea color sorter provides exceptional quality with blue LED light source and precise capturing by CCD camera helps to reject faulty particles from raw material.

Well, the electronic control system helps to provide a reference signal with reflective properties to diagnose the product quality.

Optical color sorter is a technical machine with high-resolution photoelectric service to screen out different color particles. Sorting process will complete with feeding system, signal processing system, best ejectors and optical detection system.

RGB sensors help to detect the size, color, and shape of sorting material.