Method of sorting may vary from factory to factory. This is because each company has to develop its own criteria, depending on the market demand. However, there are some common procedures that most factories follow for CTC and orthodox manufacture.
In CTC manufacture, tea is initially passed through an electrostatic fibre extractor. Once the fibre and stalks are removed, the tea is fed to the Myddleton machine. From here, the tea passes to one or two successive Arnotts, a Macintosh machine for final grading, and then it is cleaned in a Java tunnel or waterfalls. The spillover from the Myddleton is passed through the Andrew Breaker and recycled for grading.
The first step in orthodox sorting also involves the Myddleton. The output from its the two trays is passed into the Macintosh, where the tea is graded through various meshes. The spillover from the Myddleton is passed to the ghugi, or rotary hexagonal sifter, where the TGFOP, GFOP and FOP grades are extracted. But the sequence of grading varies widely from factory to factory. For example, in some factories, fine tea from dryers is fed directly to a ghugi fitted with number 14,12 and 10 meshes and sorted in the following manner through hand sieving.