Abstract:
Tea is one of the most important cash crops in the world and it plays a very significant role in the Sri Lankan economy too. As a food beverage, tea is second only to water. Sri Lankan black tea is world famous as quality tea. But manufacturers try to increase the production to gain more profits without considering the quality. It will badly affect to the image of Ceylon black tea and our export market will definitely be affected. There fore, there is need to develop the current tea manufacturing process to earn more profits while increasing the quality of the end product,
Sifting process is a cost sensitive step among the five main steps (withering, rolling, fermentation, drying and sifting) in the black tea manufacturing process (Zoyza, 2008). It demands more workers and electricity, leading to increase in the cost of production (Energy Audit Report of St. Joachim Tea Factory, 2002). But it is a very critical and valuable step as it separates the different tea grades which are produced to cater the market requirements. So the siring process directly affects the generation of profits in a factory through higher Net Sale Average (NSA) and lower cost of production. Therefore, studying the basic steps o£ factory current siring process will show the right direction for the development of modified sifting process model without harming the end product (tea grades) of tea manufacturing (Annual Repon, 2011).
The main objective of this research was to check the impact of the Modified sifting process mode I in pure orthodox black tea manufacturing for higher profits in the factory through increasing the NSA of the tea grades and reducing cost of production by saving worker, energy and time,
