PURPOSE: To deal with diversified demand for tea product by measuring the quality characteristics of raw leaf tea material through near infrared spectroscopic analysis thereby making possible to set the conditions of tea production process.
CONSTITUTION: Raw leaf material received by an unloader 11 is stored temporarily in a raw leaf managing unit 12 and eventually transferred on a transfer unit 13 to a steam heater unit 21 in a rough tea processing line 2 and passed through respective processes to produce a product. The raw leaf tea is sampled when it is received by the unloader 11 or in the way of transfer from the unloader 11 to the unit 12 and delivered to means 3 for measuring the quality characteristics of the raw leaf material. The quality characteristic value is delivered to a means 4 for setting process conditions of the rough tea processing line 2 depending on the quality characteristics of raw leaf material and signals are delivered to each unit 21-27 constituting the rough tea processing line. The means 4 also delivers control signals to the units 12, 13.
GOTO TADASHI
SADA YASUTOSHI
WARASHINA JIRO
MASUDA HIDEAKI
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