Suction Winnower Made tea Cleansing machine What is the use of suction winnower in the tea factory?

Use of Suction Winnower in the Tea factory

The primary use of a suction winnower in the tea industry is for grading and cleaning the processed tea leaves. It operates by utilizing a controlled airflow to separate particles based on their weight and aerodynamic properties.

Key Functions

Removal of Unwanted Particles: The machine is essential for extracting lightweight impurities such as:
- Tea fibers (fluff/hair)
- Dust and powdered tea (fannings)
- Other tiny, unwanted debris (weightless tea)
Tea Grading: By adjusting the air velocity, the suction winnower helps in sorting the tea into different grades based on particle size and weight, which is a crucial step in preparing the final marketable product. For example, it can separate longer leaves from smaller, broken grades.
Quality Improvement: By removing unwanted lightweight materials, the winnower significantly improves the cleanliness and overall quality of the tea. Cleaner tea fetches a better price and meets market standards.

The process essentially involves the tea leaves falling through an air stream created by a powerful suction fan. The lighter, unwanted particles are drawn away by the suction, while the heavier, desired tea particles fall into collection bins for further processing or packaging.

What is the use of a suction winnower using a 7.5 HP motor in the tea factory?

The use of a suction winnower with a 7.5 HP motor in the tea industry is fundamentally the same as any suction winnower, but the higher horsepower motor is typically employed to achieve greater capacity and stronger, more consistent airflow for processing larger volumes of tea.

Here is a breakdown of its function and the significance of the 7.5 HP motor:

1. Enhanced Processing Capacity

The primary role of the more powerful 7.5 HP motor is to handle a higher throughput of processed tea leaves.

Higher Output: Tea factories with a large daily production volume require machinery that can keep pace. The stronger motor drives a larger or more powerful centrifugal/axial fan, enabling the winnower to process a greater weight of tea per hour compared to smaller models (e.g., 5.5 HP).
Scale of Operation: A 7.5 HP machine is suited for medium to large-scale tea production lines, ensuring that the grading step does not become a bottleneck in the overall manufacturing process.

2. Core Function: Grading and Cleaning

Regardless of the motor size, the core function remains:

Air Separation: The powerful fan generates a vacuum or strong current of air. As the processed tea leaves (or "dhool") fall through this air stream, the different densities and surface areas of the particles cause them to separate.
Impurity Removal: The main use is to extract lightweight materials that reduce the quality of the final product, such as:
- Tea fibers and fluff
- Dust and light tea powder
- Other air-susceptible debris

3. Deeper Penetration and Precision

The increased power of the 7.5 HP motor offers a couple of technical advantages:

Stronger Suction: It can generate a higher-velocity airflow, which is critical for achieving a clean and more precise separation, especially with a denser or more voluminous column of falling tea.
Consistency: The higher power provides better torque and stability, allowing the fan to maintain a more consistent and uniform air current even when the machine is running continuously under heavy load. This consistency is essential for accurate and repeatable grading results.

In summary, while the use is grading and cleaning, the 7.5 HP motor allows the suction winnower to perform this task more vigorously and at a significantly larger scale, making it appropriate for high-production tea factories.

Would you like to know more about the specific grades of tea that a winnower separates, such as "Pekoe" or "Fannings"?

The suction winnower is a critical piece of equipment in the tea factory's "sifting" or "grading" room. It primarily focuses on the aerodynamic separation of particles that are difficult to separate by size alone (which is what sieves do).

The main grades and impurities a suction winnower targets are related to weight and surface area:

1. Primary Target: Impurity and Off-Grade Removal

The most vital function of the winnower is to remove the absolute lightest, least desirable particles:

Target Material

Description

What the Winnower Does

Tea Fluff/Fibre

Very light, hairy, thread-like material detached during rolling.

Being the lightest, the strong airflow instantly sucks these up and carries them away to a waste or separate collection chamber.

Dust (D/D1)

The finest powder of tea leaf fragments.

This fine powder is also very light and is lifted by the air current and separated. Dust is a low-value grade often used in tea bags for its quick, strong brew.

Flaky/Off-Grade Tea

Tea fragments that are flat or light and have an undesirable appearance.

The airflow lifts these lightweight, often flat particles, separating them from the denser, more desirable leaf fragments.

2. The Relationship to Pekoe and Fannings

The winnower doesn't create the grades of Pekoe or Fannings, but it is an essential part of the process that refines these grades and determines the final quality.

Fannings (F or BOPF): These are small, non-dust particles that are larger than dust but smaller than Broken Orange Pekoe (BOP). The suction winnower helps to ensure that the material classified as Fannings is free from the lighter dust and fibre, improving its quality and market value.
- Fannings brew quickly and are widely used in teabags.
Pekoe and Broken Orange Pekoe (BOP): These are considered higher-grade broken leaf teas (not whole leaf). The tea going into the winnower is typically a mix.
- The winnower ensures that these heavier, more desirable grades fall out of the air stream and into their intended collection bins, free of the lighter contaminants that would dilute their quality.

3. The Role of the 7.5 HP Motor

As mentioned before, the powerful 7.5 HP motor provides the necessary air volume and velocity to ensure:

Complete Separation: It ensures that all the tiny, undesirable light materials are efficiently lifted out of the larger tea grades, even when the tea feed rate is high.
Mass Production: It allows a large tea factory to process many tons of tea per day, ensuring that every batch of tea (from Pekoe down to Dust) is cleanly graded before final packaging.

In short, the suction winnower is the tea factory's ultimate "air cleaner," using controlled aerodynamics to polish the tea and remove the light impurities that sieves cannot effectively handle, ensuring the integrity of all commercial grades like Pekoe and Fannings.

KELANI Suction Winnower with 7.5HP Motor at Wikiliya Tea Factory Balangoda

The function of a Suction Winnower in a tea factory is not to produce a specific type of tea (like Black, Green, or Oolong), but rather to refine the grades of tea, regardless of the type, by separating particles based on their aerodynamic properties (weight and size).

The suction winnower is essentially an air-classification machine that refines the tea that has already been manufactured.

Function of the Suction Winnower

The core principle is air velocity separation, which is highly effective in separating the following:

Heavier Particles: The actual rolled or cut tea leaves (the desirable product).
Lighter Particles: Fibers, stalk fluff, light dust, and fine tea powder (undesirable impurities).1

Types of Tea that Use Winnower Refinement:

The machine can be used in the processing of virtually all major tea types, particularly those where a clean, high-value final grade is desired.

Tea Type

Purpose of Winnowing

Black Tea (Orthodox & CTC)

The most common application. It removes the fine, light dust, fluff, and any remaining bits of fiber from the higher-grade leaf and broken leaf grades (like BOP, FBOP, or Pekoe), ensuring a clean, dark liquor.

Green Tea

Used to remove light, flaky chaff that may remain after the fixation and drying process, leading to a cleaner, brighter final product.

Oolong Tea

Used after the rolling and drying stages to clean up the finished leaf, removing any powder or light, unwanted fragments.

White Tea

Sometimes used very gently to remove light, hairy dust or "fluff" from delicate leaf buds to enhance the purity of the final grade.

Specific Grades Refined by Winnowing

The most critical impact of the suction winnower is on the smallest, lightest, and highest-value grades where purity is paramount. The air current separates the "good" tea from the "bad" by weight, resulting in cleaner versions of:2

Dust and Fannings Grades (D and F): The winnower cleans the finest grades (like Dust, Red Dust, or Pekoe Fannings). While these are small particles, cleaning them of fluffy foreign material is essential before packing, as it affects the final liquor color and taste.
Pekoe and Broken Pekoe Grades (P, BP): These larger, well-rolled or well-cut teas are fed through the winnower to ensure that light dust particles clinging to them are removed, which preserves the bloom (the natural coating and sheen) and overall visual quality of the final grade.

The result is a more uniform, cleaner, and higher-quality batch of made tea that fetches a better price at auction.

Tea Stalk Extractor Machinery Myddleton Stalk Extractor

Myddleton Stalk Extractor (The Mechanical Method)

This is a traditional and highly effective machine, particularly used in Orthodox tea manufacturing.

Feature

Description

Principle

Density & Flotation. The machine uses an oscillating motion and a special perforated tray to encourage the separation of the denser tea particles from the lighter, more fibrous stalk fragments.

Mechanism

1. Dimpled/Perforated Trays: The machine has Two sloped trays made of dimpled aluminum (often called "bubble trays").

2. Oscillation: A crankshaft imparts a rapid, reciprocal (back-and-forth) motion to the trays.

3. Separation: The tea is fed onto the trays. The oscillating motion causes the heavier, curled tea particles to drop through the perforations, while the lighter, longer stalk and fiber pieces tend to "float" on the surface and slide over the end of the tray to be collected separately.

Primary Function

To remove coarse stalk and fiber from orthodox black tea before final grading and sorting.

KELANI Middleton Sifter at Mountcarmel tea factory at aranayaka Sri Lanka