Significance of Physical Parameters to Optimize the Bed Tea Leaves' Temperature During Fermentation Stage of Black Tea Manufacturing Process

This study is focused on how the variation of physical parameters (temperature and humidity) in the factory will affect the fermentation stage of the black tea manufacturing process. Data for this paper was collected using an automated temperature and humidity monitoring device. Here, physical parameters for fermentation of dhool 1 tea particles were analyzed for 33 batches of samples (672 data) to find the best fit model for the bed tea leaves temperature. This temperature is directly related to the oxidation of polyphenolic compounds in tea. Monitoring device placed on the fermentation bed records ambient temperature, exhaust temperature, bed tea leaves temperature, ambient humidity, exhaust humidity with 3 minutes and 20 second intervals. Then these data were analyzed by correlation and regression analysis to find the best model for the bed tea leaves' temperature. According to the results obtained in the present investigation, bed tea leaves' temperature depends on actual time, exhaust temperature, exhaust humidity and ambient temperature. These can be considered as significant quality factors for determining the optimum bed tea leaves' temperature. The optimized best fit model explains about 75.34 percent of the variation in the response. For these data, the R-2 value indicates the model provides an adequate fit to the data. Finally, these results highlight the importance of measuring tea bed exhaust temperature and humidity parameters rather an ambient condition for the black tea fermentation process.