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It's our national drink.
In the next 24 hours,

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we'll consume an astonishing
165 million cups of tea.

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Which means most of us
get through three a day.

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Tonight, we'll trace the journey
your tea goes on, over 4,000 miles,

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from plantation...

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..to tea bag.

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300 people work in this factory.

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It runs 24 hours a day,
five days a week,

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to keep up
with our insatiable demand.

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'I'm Gregg Wallace.'

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I feel a bit nervous.

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That's a tonne of tea
above my head.

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'And, in just one day,

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'I'll be making enough
of these little fellas...'

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That's like making ravioli.

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'..for nearly everyone
in Scotland and Northern Ireland

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'to enjoy a cuppa.'

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'I'm Cherry Healey...'

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Wowsers! Woohoo.

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..and I'm discovering
that half the tea we drink

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comes from someone
you would never expect.

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That would make a tea bag.

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'I'll also master the art...

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Surely the tea will be ruined?

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'..of making the very best
tea bag brew.'

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It is, without doubt,
the perfect cup of tea.

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And historian Ruth Goodman
will reveal

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how tea kept our troops
going in wartime.

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Does the trick, doesn't it? It does.

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That's a good cup of tea.
It's a good cup of Rosie Lee.

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Over the next 24 hours,

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40 million tea bags
will fly out of this factory.

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And we'll show you just
what it takes to produce them.

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Welcome to Inside The Factory.

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This is the huge Typhoo tea factory
on the Wirral, near Liverpool.

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As well as their own brands,
they make tea bags for supermarkets.

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Altogether, they're responsible
for about a quarter of all the tea

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we drink in the UK.

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Today, we are concentrating
on the nation's favourite

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and, more importantly,
my favourite -

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good old-fashioned builder's.

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This 28,500-square-metre factory
has been creating our classic cuppa

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for 39 years.

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Here, I'll be transforming 20 tonnes
of tea leaves

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into almost seven million tea bags.

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Up to five lorries
arrive here every morning,

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packed to the brim with tea leaves
from around the world.

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Today, coming into the unloading bay
is a delivery for me.

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Meeting it is
blending manager Dave Langton.

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Dave. I'm Gregg.

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Nice to meet you, Gregg. Why have
you got these great big things?

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Well, as you see, Gregg,
on the container itself,

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it's actually got a seal on it
which we always check

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before the vehicle's arriving

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to make sure the container
hasn't been interfered with.

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Come on, then, let's have it off.
OK. Do you want to do that?

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Really?

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Where do you do it? At the bottom.

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Crikey, mate!

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GREGG GRUNTS

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For crying out loud! There we go.

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The countdown from sacks of leaves
to my tea bags begins.

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Is that dried already?

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Dried tea leaves?
That's dried tea leaves, yes.

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There's 20 pallets on that
with roughly 24.5 tonne.

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24.5 tonnes of tea?

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That's an astounding
amount of tea. Mm-hm.

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Do you know what? I'm just thinking,

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cos I've been through
quite a few factories.

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This is going to make for a pretty
quick show because all we've got

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to do now is open this up now
and stick it into bags, right?

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No. There's a lot more process
involved than that, Gregg.

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It'll take an hour to get
these 20 pallets of dried leaves

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off the lorry and into the factory.

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While these guys unload,

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Cherry's been to see
where almost half the tea

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they use here comes from.

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You're probably expecting me
to be in India or China

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because that's where tea
is grown, right?

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Well, no, I'm in Kenya.

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I'm 30 miles south of the equator,
where Kenya's warm, humid climate

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is perfect for growing tea
all year round.

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It has more than 800 square miles
of plantations,

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and is the world's biggest
black tea exporter.

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The majority of its crop is grown by
half-a-million small-scale farmers.

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Hi, Mr Mwangi. Welcome.

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'Farm manager Simon Mwangi has
got me on his picking team today.'

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You have a stick to maintain
the plucking level.

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So anything above
the stick I can pluck?

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Anything else cannot
produce good tea.

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So, only pick...?
Two leaves and a bud.

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Two leaves and a bud.
So that's the trick?

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Two leaves and a bud.

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Yeah, you pluck like that.

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Is that right? Yeah, that's right.

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That's the key to a good cuppa? Yes.

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I'll give it a go.

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'The tea bush is a variety
of the camellia family of plants,

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'more commonly seen as
a flowering shrub in our gardens.'

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Oh, my God, she's so fast.
You're so fast!

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'The top two leaves
are known as the tips.'

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God, how can you even see them?

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'They're the youngest, tenderest
leaves, and give the best flavour.'

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How are you so fast?!

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'I'm not sure I've got
the technique quite right.'

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Is that too long? This can be...

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Taken down. So, they really
just want the leaves?

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Yeah. Once you've picked the tea,
how long does it take to grow back?

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About two weeks.

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Two weeks? That's so fast.

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And do you like tea?

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Very much. Do you?

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So, at the end of the day,
do you have a nice cup of tea?

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Yes. Oh, do you?

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That would make a tea bag.

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Isn't that beautiful?

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These 12g of fresh green leaves
will shrink down

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to just under 3g
of finished black tea.

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I feel like my pile is very puny
compared to everyone else's!

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Look at Aaron's!

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But you have tried.

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Everyone loves a trier.

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Yes. And I'm definitely trying.

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We're taking my leaves
to the processing plant

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less than a mile away.

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It was built in 1965,
and is now a cooperative,

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working with more than
6,500 smallholding farmers.

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Our fresh, delicate crop
needs preserving quickly,

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to lock in its flavour,
before it's shipped overseas.

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That... Wow!

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They move!

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'The process starts
in the withering room.'

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Whoa!

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'Joseph Arethee
is the factory manager.'

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Now what do we do?

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We pour the tea... OK.
..from the bag. OK.

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Then we do the spreading.
We spread it. Spreading?

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Why do you do it like that?

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So we want to spread
and then air it.

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So to cool it?

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To cool it. Right, OK. Yes.

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The leaves sit here for 12 hours

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to let around 30% of their moisture
content evaporate into the air.

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Those destined for loose-leaf tea
are rolled just enough

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to make them twist,
which produces a lighter taste.

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The leaves for tea bags go through
a cut, tear and curl process,

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which helps them infuse
and brew more quickly.

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They're turned into
a fine, wet mush.

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Next, this green paste
must be aerated for 90 minutes.

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The oxygen reacts with
the enzymes of the leaves,

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changing their colour.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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Not yet?

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Our damp tea needs
one more crucial transformation.

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The mega-drier reduces the moisture
level in the leaves to just 3%.

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Now it's dry, the tea is sieved
and sorted by particle size,

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ready for packing.

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Just in that one pallet
is 1,360kg of tea.

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Enough for almost
half a million cups!

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It's taken around 18 hours
to get my leaves from the field

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and onto this lorry.

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Now, it's heading off on a long
and complex journey to the UK.

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First, it's driven for ten hours
to the port of Mombasa.

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From there, a container ship
carries it on a four-week voyage,

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calling at ports along the route,

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through the Suez Canal,
across the Mediterranean,

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around the European coast,
and into the Port of Liverpool.

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Once it hits dry land, it's just
a 20-minute hop to the factory.

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Here, they buy leaves from
seven countries around the world.

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And this morning's delivery
from Kenya

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came from
five different plantations.

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Righto, Dave, we've got it unloaded.
Now what?

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We're going to take samples to
ensure what's actually arrived

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on site is what
we've actually paid for.

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Right, OK. Would you like to
take this sample for me?

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What have I got to do? OK, if you'd
like to cut a V into the bag itself.

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What, either side of the elephant?

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Whoa! Whoa! And into your hand.

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There you go.

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Oh, I see, you cut the V because,
as soon as you push the V back in,

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it stops coming out.
It stops coming out.

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That's something we've learned,
that's something we've learned.

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Yeah. I can't believe that works!

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'Now my delivery needs testing
to make sure it's up to standard.'

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What is this? This is our trolley
to transport our samples

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through to the tasting department.
Is that as hi-tech as it gets?

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That is, I'm afraid.
How long have you had this trolley?

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That's probably older than me,
that trolley, Gregg.

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All right, listen, cheers, mate.

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Just around the corner

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is the factory's tasting
and blending department.

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The four experts here taste
every consignment of tea

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that arrives at the factory.

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Alan Hargreaves is head
of buying and blending,

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and has been tasting tea
for 30 years.

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Alan. Gregg.

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I've got samples.

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Excellent. Come on, then,
get the kettle on.

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OK, we've got the kettle on there.

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So, first of all,
we've got to weigh this up.

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So we're weighing
roughly 2.8g of tea.

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Which weighs the same
as an old shilling. Yes.

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00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:43,000
And, if you look at what we've
got in there, it's an old shilling.

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You know, this is a
multi-million-pound, world industry,

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00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:49,000
I've used a little shopping trolley
to bring it here,

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00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:51,000
you've put
an old-fashioned kettle on,

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00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:53,000
and now you're weighing it out
with a manual scale

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00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:56,000
with a shilling in it.
It's a very traditional trade.

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This is brilliant.

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00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:00,000
Just be careful
cos it is a little bit hot.

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00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:01,000
I want you to take a slurp.

213
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:03,000
ALAN SLURPS

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00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:07,000
Draw in air
to the back of the palate,

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00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:09,000
swill it around,
and then spit it out.

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00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:11,000
Slurp it and spit it? Yes.

217
00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:14,000
My mum spent almost 20 years
telling me not to.

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00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:17,000
GREGG SLURPS

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00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:23,000
Good? Too good to spit out, mate,
to be honest.

220
00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:26,000
ALAN CHUCKLES
That is actually nice.

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00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:29,000
If it's OK, can we just
stick it in bags and send it out?

222
00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,000
No, no, no, we can't do that.

223
00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:35,000
This is just the first point of call
of making the blend.

224
00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:37,000
So, what I have here...

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Hang on, hang on. Blend?

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00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:43,000
So every blend basically
is roughly 20 different tea estates.

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So the tea in my tea bag - that's
a blend of different tea leaves?

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00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:50,000
Correct.

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00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:54,000
'The flavour of black tea
varies from country to country,

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00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:56,000
'even from field to field.'

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00:13:57,000 --> 00:13:59,000
One thing you've got to remember,
it's a vegetation crop,

232
00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:01,000
we have different
climatic conditions,

233
00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:03,000
we have different processes.

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00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:06,000
In different weather
and different soil? Yes.

235
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:09,000
It's like making wine. Yes.
But you're blending different teas

236
00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:11,000
from all over the world
every single time...

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00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:14,000
Yes. ..to make
the flavour that you need?

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00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:17,000
Yes. That's always the same? Yes.

239
00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:21,000
Wow.

240
00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:24,000
I had absolutely no idea.

241
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:28,000
Alan's team created
the master blend in 1978,

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00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:31,000
but the exact recipe
changes every day,

243
00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:34,000
depending on the available
mix of leaves.

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00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:38,000
It's the only way to make
sure the bags made this week

245
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:41,000
taste exactly like
the ones from last week.

246
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:45,000
Today, the Kenyan leaves
I brought in

247
00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:47,000
are the crucial final ingredient.

248
00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:51,000
Perfect. So you're happy
with this now.

249
00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:53,000
All right, so what do we do now?

250
00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:56,000
Yes. So I've got the recipe here,
which is top secret.

251
00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:58,000
This one is for 20 tonnes.

252
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:00,000
I'll pass that to you.

253
00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:02,000
You can take that into the factory
and we can start blending it.

254
00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:04,000
And this is secret, is it?

255
00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:05,000
Top secret.

256
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:07,000
Am I allowed to look at it?

257
00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:08,000
You can have a peep.

258
00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:11,000
It doesn't mean a lot to me,
to be honest.

259
00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:13,000
So this one here is from Kenya.

260
00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:16,000
It's this key element which was
the final piece of the jigsaw.

261
00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:18,000
I learnt a lot there.

262
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:21,000
I found that fascinating.
Thank you. You're welcome.

263
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:29,000
All the work
that Alan and his team do

264
00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:33,000
ensures that your tea tastes
exactly the same every single day.

265
00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:36,000
But, as Ruth Goodman's
been discovering,

266
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:37,000
back in the Victorian era,

267
00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:40,000
you couldn't always trust
what was in your brew.

268
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:48,000
'In the early 19th century,
if you wanted to buy tea...'

269
00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:50,000
Hello.

270
00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:53,000
'..you went to the grocer's
and asked for it by weight.'

271
00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:57,000
But there was a problem -

272
00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:00,000
you had absolutely no idea
whether what you were buying

273
00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:03,000
was, in fact, pure tea.

274
00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:06,000
Tea adulteration was rampant.

275
00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:13,000
Historian Jane Pettigrew has been
investigating the treacheries

276
00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:14,000
of the early tea trade.

277
00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:17,000
Tea was so expensive in those days.

278
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:21,000
The average price of a pound of tea
in round about 1800

279
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:24,000
was between 18 shillings
and 20 shillings.

280
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:25,000
RUTH GASPS

281
00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:28,000
That would be around ?30
in today's money.

282
00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:34,000
The high cost meant it was tempting
for fraudsters to fake it.

283
00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:37,000
Unscrupulous traders
would actually make false tea

284
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:40,000
by picking leaves
from other bushes and trees,

285
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:44,000
and they would take those leaves
and they would be boiled up

286
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:46,000
in ferrous sulphate
and sheep's dung!

287
00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:52,000
The chemical ferrous sulphate, along
with the sheep's dung, added colour.

288
00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:55,000
And then that would
be mixed with real tea

289
00:16:55,000 --> 00:16:57,000
that had already been brewed.

290
00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:00,000
Second-hand tea.
Second-hand teas, yes.

291
00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:04,000
And then, coloured in Prussian blue
to give them that blue-green tinge.

292
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:06,000
So, people were drinking
all sorts of things

293
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:08,000
that they really
shouldn't have been.

294
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:09,000
I would not want to be
drinking something

295
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:11,000
that's been steeped
in sheep's dung. No!

296
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:13,000
I mean, you just don't know, do you?

297
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:14,000
And all these dangerous chemicals

298
00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:17,000
that would certainly
not be allowed today.

299
00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:21,000
At least eight factories in London
in the 1840s

300
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:26,000
existed for the sole purpose
of drying used tea leaves

301
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:29,000
and reselling them
to fraudulent dealers.

302
00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:31,000
But one man was to change all this,

303
00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:34,000
and allow us to trust our tea.

304
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:37,000
He was honest John Horniman,

305
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:40,000
a Quaker tea merchant
whose business integrity

306
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:43,000
helped make him a large fortune.

307
00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:47,000
He invented a tea packaging machine
and, according to Fiona Kerlogue,

308
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:51,000
curator of the Horniman Museum,
that was the game-changer.

309
00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:58,000
John Horniman was the first person
to sell tea in sealed packages

310
00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:01,000
of guaranteed weight and purity.

311
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:05,000
Unlike most tea being produced
at the time, Horniman's was pure,

312
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:09,000
and he made the most of this unique
selling point in his advertising.

313
00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:12,000
This is a poster from the 1850s.

314
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,000
Oh, right. And it says,

315
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:17,000
"Tea with the import mark
of your firm is as described,

316
00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:21,000
"perfectly pure and free from
all artificial colouring, and is,

317
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:25,000
"in every respect, wholesome
and most desirable for general use."

318
00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:31,000
His strategy was so successful
that, by 1891,

319
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:34,000
he was said to have the largest
tea company in the world.

320
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:42,000
Horniman's successful
package branding strategy

321
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:45,000
quickly attracted
a whole host of rivals.

322
00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:51,000
And, in 1918, one of the new brands,
Lyons Tea, bought Horniman's.

323
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:54,000
Eventually, the name
disappeared from the UK,

324
00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:58,000
although it still remains
a market leader in Spain!

325
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:01,000
And I think it's rather a shame
that honest John Horniman

326
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:05,000
doesn't get a bit more credit
for this whole phenomenon,

327
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:07,000
for helping us enjoy a cuppa,

328
00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:12,000
safe in the knowledge that it
really is nothing but pure tea.

329
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:20,000
At the factory,
I'm in the tea storage area,

330
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:24,000
and ready for the next step
on my epic tea bag journey.

331
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:30,000
It's over three hours since
my Kenyan shipment arrived.

332
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:33,000
Head blender Alan
has approved my leaves

333
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:37,000
and given me my ingredient list,
so I can start making my blend.

334
00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:46,000
So far, my recipe has only
be made in a sample size.

335
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:52,000
Now we're scaling it up
to 20 tonnes of tea bags

336
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:56,000
using 320 sacks of leaves.

337
00:19:58,000 --> 00:20:02,000
Each pallet holds
a separate element of the blend.

338
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:06,000
Keeping track of it all is
operations manager Danny McGrail.

339
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:08,000
Here he is. How are you, mate?

340
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:10,000
Are you all right, mate?
You all right?

341
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,000
What is that?

342
00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:13,000
That is Robbie the Robot.

343
00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:16,000
And he's our robot who picks up
all our tea here on site for us.

344
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:21,000
OK, so, we're going to
start Robbie off.

345
00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:23,000
It's the green button
and the black button there.

346
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:25,000
We need to press and twist
at the same time.

347
00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:27,000
So press the green button
with your thumb.

348
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:30,000
Twist the black button,
hit the green one?

349
00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:31,000
No, simultaneously.

350
00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:34,000
Yeah! Ya-hey!

351
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:03,000
My tea blend recipe
uses leaves grown in seven regions

352
00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:05,000
across five different countries.

353
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:10,000
How can he see where the bags are?

354
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:12,000
There's a camera up on the top,
so he's taken a photo of it,

355
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:15,000
a picture of it, every one,
so he knows where they are.

356
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:18,000
But how does he know
which pallets to take them from?

357
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:21,000
So we've pre-programmed it before
we've started the machine off,

358
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:23,000
so Robbie knows now
he's got to pick two bags

359
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,000
off each of the 16 pallets.

360
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:28,000
We want nearly 20 tonnes of tea.
Correct.

361
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:31,000
Why is he only taking
two bags at a time?

362
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:34,000
Cos we blend it
in two-tonne sections.

363
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:37,000
We couldn't fit all 20 in one
blending drum, you see, Gregg.

364
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:40,000
So we're going to get 20 tonnes...
Yeah. ..but in ten batches of two?

365
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:41,000
Ten batches of two tonne.

366
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,000
The sacks are tipped into something

367
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:54,000
that looks surprisingly
like my tumble dryer.

368
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:57,000
So what we're trying to do in this
part is actually empty the sack.

369
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:02,000
So it's being ripped open
before it gets into there?

370
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:06,000
Yeah, there's a giant saw in front
of it that cuts the sack of tea,

371
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:08,000
all the tea spills out
through the giant tumbler,

372
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:10,000
and then the sack's going
to work its way along,

373
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:13,000
get pushed out the side,
and be compacted.

374
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:15,000
It's almost hypnotic.

375
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,000
And it's a lovely smell as well.

376
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:23,000
My fragrant tea leaves
fall onto a conveyor belt

377
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:26,000
and are then sent back up a pipe

378
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:30,000
before dropping down
into an oversized sieve.

379
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:32,000
This is just an enormous machine
basically doing that.

380
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,000
Basically, yeah.

381
00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:37,000
I love the fact that it comes down
and doesn't get any further,

382
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:38,000
and then shrinks back up.

383
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:41,000
Yeah. So all the tea is
falling through the holes? Yeah.

384
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:42,000
Everything else...

385
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:45,000
Everything else will just vibrate
all the way down to the bottom,

386
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:47,000
and that'll go out
into our waste stream.

387
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:49,000
As well as, obviously, bits of bag,

388
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:51,000
anything else get stuck in there?

389
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:55,000
So there's actually little bits of
metal that you can actually see

390
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:59,000
in there that have come through
in the tea as well.

391
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:01,000
That was in the sack of tea?

392
00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:03,000
Yes, that will come through.

393
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:04,000
All the way from Africa?

394
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:08,000
Yeah. Not what you'd expect
to find in your tea bag.

395
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:11,000
You'd be SCREWED.
DANNY CHUCKLES

396
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,000
It will take two hours
to sieve my 20 tonnes of leaves.

397
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:24,000
Next, a conveyor takes
them into the blending area,

398
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,000
where my seven different teas
will be mixed together.

399
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:30,000
Where does it come in?

400
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:33,000
It's coming in above our heads
there, Gregg, on a belt.

401
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:36,000
The tea is then going to slide down
and fall into our drums.

402
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:37,000
Goes in both sides? Both sides.

403
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:40,000
The drum will rotate one way when
it's filling, for four minutes.

404
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,000
It'll then blend it
for four minutes.

405
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:46,000
'It's like a giant food mixer,
and a gently efficient way

406
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:50,000
'to spread my different leaves
evenly through the batch.'

407
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,000
Once it's finished blending it,

408
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,000
it's going to rotate
the opposite way,

409
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:58,000
and that empties the system, and
then that sends it upstairs for us.

410
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:02,000
I don't really understand how
it's getting back upstairs.

411
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:04,000
So on these two side stanchions
there, Gregg,

412
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,000
is what we call a bucket elevator,

413
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:09,000
and in there is hundreds
of stainless steel scoops.

414
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:10,000
When the drum is emptying,

415
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:14,000
it dispenses into each one of these
stainless steel buckets

416
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,000
and it starts to go up,
gets itself to the top,

417
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:18,000
and when it is at its highest point,

418
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:20,000
it will drop vertical,
drop the tea onto a belt.

419
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:22,000
Why does it go back up?
That's a bad design.

420
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,000
It is a bad design. Wouldn't it be
easier to fall through the floor?

421
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:28,000
Our factory actually wasn't designed
to make tea bags originally.

422
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:31,000
It was actually a chocolate factory.
Is that right? That's correct.

423
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:33,000
You were never meant to make tea
in the first place?

424
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,000
We weren't meant to make tea bags,
so we've had to adapt our factory,

425
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:39,000
and to design a system that actually
does it the wrong way round -

426
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:42,000
we have to actually take
ours upstairs, across,

427
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:44,000
and then bring it back downstairs.
Got you!

428
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:49,000
That's the first two tonnes
of my classic blend mixed.

429
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:56,000
But back in Kenya, Cherry's finding
out what gives tea its great taste

430
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,000
in the first place.

431
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,000
If you look at where tea comes from,

432
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,000
there's nothing to indicate
that it would make a good brew.

433
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,000
Looks a bit like a privet hedge.

434
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:09,000
But if you scrutinise
the chemistry of a tea leaf,

435
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,000
it's astonishingly complex.

436
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:16,000
Around 30% of every tea leaf
is made of a group of chemicals

437
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:18,000
called polyphenols.

438
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,000
They contribute
to the tea's flavour.

439
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:25,000
Polyphenols are produced by the
plant as a defence against insects.

440
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:28,000
They really don't like
the taste of them.

441
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:29,000
But we do.

442
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,000
And in the tea processing plant,

443
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:34,000
these polyphenols can be manipulated

444
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,000
to dramatically alter
the appearance,

445
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:39,000
aroma and flavour of your drinks.

446
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:43,000
Factory manager Joseph Arethee
fills me in.

447
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,000
So what are we making now?

448
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:47,000
We are making green tea.

449
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:52,000
Green tea. This looks exactly like
all the other tea we've seen.

450
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:53,000
Why is this green tea?

451
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,000
It is exactly like
the other tea we have seen.

452
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:59,000
It is the same tea leaves.

453
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,000
So I thought green tea,
white tea and black tea

454
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:03,000
all came from different plants.

455
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:06,000
No, no. It is the same tea plant.

456
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:10,000
The only difference between
all of those types of tea

457
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:12,000
is the way you process the leaf

458
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:15,000
after you get it
from the mother plant.

459
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:22,000
For green tea, they steam
the fresh leaves at 100 degrees.

460
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,000
This stops the enzymes
reacting with the oxygen,

461
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:29,000
so the leaves stay green
instead of turning brown

462
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,000
and keep more of those
tasty polyphenols.

463
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:36,000
Is it tea time?

464
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:39,000
It is tea time. Yes!
Welcome, welcome, welcome.

465
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:42,000
Taster Peter Kamanga is showing me
how the different treatment

466
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:45,000
affects the flavour.
First, green tea.

467
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:47,000
What does that taste
remind you of? Green.

468
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,000
It tastes green.
We call that character grassy.

469
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,000
Grassy. Grassy. It's very greenish.

470
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,000
Next, black tea.

471
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:58,000
The oxidisation which changes
the colour of the leaves

472
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,000
also changes the make-up
of the polyphenols,

473
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,000
creating a deeper, maltier flavour.

474
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:09,000
And Peter has their strongest grade
for me to try.

475
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:11,000
That's a lovely cup.

476
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:13,000
Is that lovely? It's so gutty.

477
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,000
Gutty? It just bites your cheeks.

478
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,000
OK, it's gutty and bitey. Yeah.

479
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,000
I'm going to have...
I'm going to have slightly less.

480
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:27,000
It is quite sharp, yeah?

481
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:30,000
Wow, that is bitey.
It is very strong tea.

482
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,000
I mean, that would wake you up
in the morning, wouldn't it?

483
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,000
Wowzer. Woohoo!

484
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:40,000
The third type I'm trying -
white tea - isn't oxidised,

485
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,000
and is the least processed of all.

486
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,000
Oh, that's amazing.
We call it floral, floral character.

487
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:49,000
It's very floral, very delicate.

488
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:52,000
Here we have only picked the bud.

489
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:57,000
The bud. So white tea
is just that little magic leaf.

490
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,000
It feels like velvet.

491
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,000
Yes, it does. Yeah? Yes, yes.

492
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:06,000
The young shoots contain
the highest number of polyphenols,

493
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,000
and make white tea
the most expensive.

494
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,000
So even though I've been drinking

495
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,000
and loving
all different types of tea

496
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,000
for over two decades,

497
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:21,000
I never realised that they all came
from the same incredible leaf.

498
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:34,000
The first batch of my leaves
has finished mixing,

499
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:36,000
and been scooped upstairs
to the filling station...

500
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:43,000
..where, five and a quarter hours
after my Kenyan tea arrived,

501
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:45,000
I can now pour my blend
into each of these

502
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,000
massive one-tonne storage bags.

503
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:50,000
A tonne of tea is going to

504
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:52,000
come shooting out of there
in a minute, right? That's right.

505
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:54,000
And if you want to
press that green button,

506
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,000
then the tea will start to dispense
into the bag for us.

507
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,000
It takes just four minutes
to load a bag,

508
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,000
and they fill two at a time.

509
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:10,000
That is the biggest tea bag
I have ever seen.

510
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:15,000
What now? We have to take
a sample of it to your mate, Alan,

511
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,000
in tea tasting. I like him.

512
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,000
A little bald bloke with glasses.
Very attractive.

513
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:25,000
Alan has to make sure the blend
I've made is exactly right.

514
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:30,000
Can I ask you - how many tea bags
in this tonne of tea?

515
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,000
You're looking at around
330,000 tea bags.

516
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,000
Why don't we just add
the milk and sugar now?

517
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,000
HE CHUCKLES
That is a packet of tea.

518
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,000
I'm quite proud of that, you know?
What do I do, take it down?

519
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:43,000
No, we go this way
and we've got a little air chute,

520
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,000
we'll put it in there and we'll
fire that down to him

521
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:48,000
and it'll end up in our tea tasting
lounge. Really? Yeah. Right.

522
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,000
What do I do?

523
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:53,000
So basically we need to put
our sample into the container.

524
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:54,000
Oh, my word.

525
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:56,000
Lift.

526
00:29:57,000 --> 00:29:59,000
Place that in there.

527
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:01,000
Seal back down.

528
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:04,000
Red button. Press that.

529
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:07,000
And that will go
shooting off to Alan? Alan.

530
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,000
PNEUMATIC TUBES WHOOSH

531
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:13,000
HE EXHALES

532
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,000
All this tea production
is making me thirsty.

533
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,000
Now, you've heard people say,
"I'm dying for a cup of tea."

534
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:22,000
Well, during World War II, people
really did die for a cup of tea.

535
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,000
Ruth has been investigating.

536
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,000
When the Second World War
was declared in 1939,

537
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:37,000
the Government was well aware
of just how important tea would be

538
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:38,000
to the morale of the nation.

539
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,000
So they took control of all
the factory stocks and supplies,

540
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:45,000
and, like the Crown Jewels,

541
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:49,000
they moved their tea treasure out
of London to protect it from bombs.

542
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:54,000
So, when tea was rationed in 1940,

543
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:59,000
there was about enough tea for each
person to have three cups a day,

544
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,000
so long as you followed
the Ministry of Food advice

545
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,000
that it would be no more than,

546
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:07,000
"One spoonful per person
and none for the pot."

547
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:16,000
But the military on active service
got a more generous ration.

548
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:20,000
For them, the bigger problem
was how to brew it up.

549
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,000
'I've come to
Bovington Tank Museum...'

550
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:25,000
Hello. Hello.

551
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,000
'..to meet curator, David Willey.'

552
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:30,000
This is a Second World War
British Churchill tank.

553
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:33,000
Do you want to have a look inside?
Yeah, go on.

554
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,000
'David is showing me
how difficult it was

555
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:36,000
'to make tea on the front line.'

556
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,000
That's small, isn't it?

557
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:42,000
Yeah, pretty compact.

558
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:43,000
How many people would be in there,
then?

559
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,000
You've got a crew of five.

560
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:49,000
Five?! Three just in this turret,
two down in the front.

561
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,000
Oh, my goodness,
you're packed in like sardines.

562
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:53,000
The last thing you want to do
in a space like that

563
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,000
is to have a naked flame.

564
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,000
You've got ammunition,
you've got petrol in there,

565
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:00,000
so you always had to come out
to make cups of tea.

566
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:06,000
Making tea outside with limited
resources required some invention.

567
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:11,000
This is what we call
a Benghazi boiler,

568
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,000
and it's basically
just a pan full of sand,

569
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:16,000
pour some petrol on,
set it on fire,

570
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,000
and you can see
we've got a good blaze going.

571
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:22,000
I can really see why you wouldn't
be doing this inside a tank!

572
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,000
No. And the minute
any vehicle stops anywhere,

573
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,000
somebody's starting
that Benghazi boiler going,

574
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:29,000
so we can get a brew on the go.

575
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:32,000
And in the letters and the diaries,
guys are actually saying,

576
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,000
you know,
"Our morale went up and down

577
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:37,000
"in proportion to the amount of tea
we actually got." Really?

578
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,000
You want to give it a go?
I'll give it a go.

579
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,000
Oh, look at that. Lovely.

580
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,000
All them lovely tea leaves.

581
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:49,000
That's got a bit of a kick.

582
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,000
SHE LAUGHS

583
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:52,000
Hm.

584
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:56,000
The British thirst for a cuppa
could be a risky manoeuvre.

585
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:02,000
On June 13th, 1944,
an armoured squadron was destroyed

586
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:05,000
outside the French town
of Villers-Bocage.

587
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,000
It's believed
they'd stopped for a tea break.

588
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,000
Incidents like these
were tragically common.

589
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:15,000
So the British came up
with an invention

590
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:18,000
that meant soldiers
could brew up in safety.

591
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,000
There's quite a sight
coming towards you.

592
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:29,000
Oh, yeah.

593
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:34,000
Whoa.

594
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:38,000
That is a threatening thing
you've got there, mate.

595
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,000
This is a Challenger 1 tank.

596
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,000
This saw service in the 1980s.

597
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:45,000
This tank and every tank
that Britain made

598
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:48,000
after the Second World War
had one of these in it.

599
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,000
It's something called
a boiling vessel,

600
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:55,000
so nowadays the crews can actually
have a hot drink safe and protected.

601
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:57,000
That's where you plug it in,
this is your tap which turns round,

602
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,000
that's where your water comes out.

603
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,000
And in the top here,
and that's where the boiling is...

604
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:05,000
Oh, right. Oh, I see.
So that's your actual vessel.

605
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,000
And that's where it's heated.
No flames, all contained,

606
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,000
keep our chaps safe inside.

607
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:14,000
And it's an amazingly
popular bit of kit.

608
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,000
Former tank commander Tony Stirling

609
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,000
knows all about
the importance of tea in tanks.

610
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:22,000
Tony! Hello, Ruth.

611
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:24,000
Welcome aboard.
SHE LAUGHS

612
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:27,000
Now, you've used this
for real, haven't you?

613
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,000
Absolutely, yeah.
Used it in the first Gulf War.

614
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,000
And is it still part
of the British Army rations?

615
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,000
Absolutely.
Here I've got a modern version

616
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,000
of the British Army ration pack.

617
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:40,000
And if we open up inside,
you can see...

618
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:43,000
Tea bags! There they are.

619
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,000
I'll make a cup of tea,
if that's OK. Yeah!

620
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:49,000
OK. Go on. All we do is
dispense the water through the tap.

621
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,000
Does the trick, doesn't it? It does.

622
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:52,000
It must make a huge difference,

623
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:55,000
just having that whenever
you've got a bit of waiting time.

624
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:59,000
Letters from home
and hot food and tea, Ruth.

625
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,000
It's what keeps the guys going.

626
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,000
That's a good cup of tea.
It's a good cup of Rosie Lee.

627
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:10,000
The British military
gets through

628
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,000
around 216 million cups of tea
a year.

629
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,000
And thanks to the boiling vessel,

630
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:19,000
brewing up on the job
is now a whole lot safer.

631
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,000
PNEUMATIC TUBES WHOOSH

632
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:35,000
'At the factory,
my precious blended tea sample

633
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,000
'easily beats me
to the tasting room.'

634
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,000
I was trying to get here before
the samples. No, I'm afraid not.

635
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,000
'Now it's up to head blender Alan
to decide if my mixture

636
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:48,000
'from seven plantations
matches their standard blend,

637
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,000
'and if it's good enough
to turn into tea bags.'

638
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,000
So we've got the standard,

639
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:56,000
and then we've got the blend
which you've just done now.

640
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,000
You need to make sure
it's exactly the same.

641
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,000
Exactly the same.
The proof will be in the pudding,

642
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:02,000
so we'll taste this,

643
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,000
and then let's see if you
can notice any differences.

644
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,000
You're not going to start
slurping and spitting

645
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,000
all over the place again, are you?

646
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:10,000
That's exactly
what we're going to do. Oh...

647
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:14,000
That's the standard, right?
It is, yes.

648
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,000
HE SLURPS

649
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,000
And then we've got the blend
which you've just done now.

650
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:29,000
And the difference is...?

651
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:32,000
Mate, nobody...

652
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:33,000
Nobody would notice the difference.

653
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,000
Well, there isn't a difference,
is there? No, there isn't.

654
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,000
We're posher in my house.
Do you know why? Why?

655
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:39,000
We've got handles.

656
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:41,000
ALAN CHUCKLES

657
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:43,000
Cheers, mate. Yeah, Cheers.

658
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:44,000
Pleasure.

659
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:49,000
You drank it. Yeah, absolutely.

660
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:53,000
You drank it!
You didn't spit it out.

661
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:55,000
Mate, thank you very much.
Yeah, you're welcome.

662
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:00,000
With Alan's gold slurp of approval,

663
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:03,000
5? hours after my leaf delivery,

664
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:08,000
I can now turn my 20 tonnes of tea
into tea bags.

665
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:11,000
In the blended tea storage area,

666
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:15,000
operations manager Danny
is waiting to hear my results.

667
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,000
All right. Hello, mate.
We're in business. OK.

668
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:20,000
So what do we do with it now?

669
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:21,000
So basically what we need to do

670
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:24,000
is now we need to get it
to our tea bag-making machines.

671
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:26,000
So what I need you to do, Gregg,
is I want you to untie that.

672
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,000
The tea will then
flow through the neck

673
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:32,000
and start to flow through
the system. I feel a bit nervous.

674
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:34,000
That's a tonne of tea above my head.

675
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:36,000
Correct. There she goes.

676
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,000
Nice.

677
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,000
That's ridiculously comforting.
DANNY LAUGHS

678
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,000
That'd send you off to sleep.

679
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:46,000
The leaves are being sucked
by a powerful vacuum

680
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:48,000
through a complex system of pipes,

681
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,000
350 metres, to the room below.

682
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,000
It's going to take an hour
to unload? That's right.

683
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,000
We don't have to stand here
and watch it, do we?

684
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:00,000
No, we don't. All right.
Come on. Do you fancy a cup of...?

685
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,000
A cup of Rosie?

686
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:04,000
I was going to say coffee,
to be honest...

687
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:05,000
I have my builder's blend,

688
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,000
but of course there's
another crucial element

689
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,000
I need for my tea bags -

690
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:11,000
paper!

691
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,000
Cherry's been to find out
how it's made.

692
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,000
The quiet beauty of
the Scottish Borders

693
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:23,000
might not be the first place
you'd associate with tea bags.

694
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:25,000
But you'd be wrong,

695
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:28,000
because this factory, astonishingly,

696
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:34,000
produces one in ten
of the world's tea bags.

697
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:39,000
There's been a paper mill here
in Chirnside for 175 years.

698
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:42,000
But the first thing I can see
are stacks of something

699
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:44,000
more like felt fabric.

700
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:45,000
Hi, Stuart. Hiya.

701
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:48,000
Lovely to meet you.
Pleased to meet you. Pleasure.

702
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:51,000
Plant manager Stuart Nixon
explains what this is.

703
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:54,000
The most important material
is the abaca, or Manila hemp.

704
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:57,000
This is what my tea bag is made of?
It is indeed, yeah.

705
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,000
What looks like
the inside of my mattress.

706
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,000
A little bit like that, yeah.
But this is in fact hemp.

707
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:04,000
What is hemp?
Hemp is a natural fibre,

708
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,000
and it's related
to the banana plant.

709
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:09,000
It doesn't produce banana fruit.

710
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:14,000
This abaca hemp is imported
from the Philippines,

711
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:18,000
where it's been grown for centuries
to provide fibre for rope,

712
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:20,000
and, more recently, paper.

713
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,000
Why do you use this material?
Why is it good for tea bags?

714
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:28,000
The key thing about this is that
the fibre length is very, very long.

715
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:30,000
When we form it into
a sheet of paper,

716
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,000
we can form a very lightweight sheet
that's very strong,

717
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:34,000
but also very porous.

718
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,000
And if you think about
the purpose of a tea bag,

719
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:39,000
you want to keep the tea
inside the tea bag,

720
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,000
but you want to let the tea
infuse into the cup.

721
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,000
And the abaca is the key material
to allow that to happen.

722
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:49,000
I had no idea that a tea bag
was so constructed.

723
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:50,000
It's an engineered product, yes.

724
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:56,000
'The abaca is loaded up
onto a conveyor belt,

725
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,000
'that takes it along
into a giant mixer...'

726
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:00,000
Whoa! Wow.

727
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:04,000
'..where it's broken down
with water,

728
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:06,000
'which turns it into a sludge.'

729
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:10,000
It looks like
a giant vat of porridge.

730
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:13,000
It does, yes.
It looks weirdly delicious.

731
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,000
Why are you blending it
all together?

732
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:18,000
You can see that the fibres are
all stuck together, matted together.

733
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,000
You want to make
those fibres individual.

734
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:23,000
You're mixing it with water
to separate it

735
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:24,000
so that they can be laid flat?

736
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:26,000
Yes. It is an odd process,

737
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:30,000
because you have this flat sheet
and you mash it up with water

738
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:34,000
so you can then make it
into another flat sheet.

739
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:35,000
But much thinner.

740
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:43,000
The next ingredient
is a specialist plastic.

741
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,000
This is the heat seal fibre
that we use,

742
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:48,000
so that the tea bag producer
can seal the tea bag together,

743
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,000
so that the tea
stays inside the tea bag.

744
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:52,000
This is almost like cotton wool,

745
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,000
but it's in fact a plastic.
Plastic, yep.

746
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:59,000
How much of my tea bag is made up
of this plastic substance?

747
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:00,000
About 25%, a quarter.

748
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,000
About a quarter.

749
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,000
This plastic is mixed in
with the abaca hemp.

750
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:09,000
And there's one more element
to a tea bag - wood pulp,

751
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:12,000
which forms
an outer insulating layer,

752
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:16,000
to prevent the paper
dissolving in your mug.

753
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:20,000
Wood pulp sheets are broken down
by thousands of litres of water.

754
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,000
The whole process
relies on water heavily,

755
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:25,000
and water is used as the medium,

756
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,000
the fluid that pumps
the fibre around the plant.

757
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:32,000
'The wood pulp
and the abaca plastic mix...'

758
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:33,000
There it goes.

759
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,000
'..are piped separately
into the 40-metre-long

760
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,000
'giant papermaking machine.'

761
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:52,000
First, the abaca and plastic mix
is poured onto a mesh conveyor belt.

762
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,000
The water drains off,
leaving the fibres behind.

763
00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:00,000
The wood pulp is poured on top
and its excess water

764
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:03,000
drains through the bottom layer,
sealing them together.

765
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:09,000
After drying at 100 degrees,

766
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:13,000
the two layers are stretched
into a single sheet,

767
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,000
just a tenth of a millimetre thick.

768
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:24,000
The 2.2-metre-wide sheet of paper
whizzes out of the machine

769
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:27,000
at up to 300 metres a minute.

770
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,000
Then it's wound onto a roll,

771
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:33,000
which is quite rightly
called a jumbo.

772
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,000
Woohoo!

773
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:38,000
It's a gigantic loo roll!

774
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:42,000
It's big. That is enormous.

775
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:45,000
So that's the finished paper,
that is tea bag paper.

776
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,000
That is tea bag paper.

777
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:49,000
How many metres will that be
when it's finished?

778
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:54,000
By the time it's finished
it'll be about 60km, 60,000 metres.

779
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:56,000
And how many of those
do you make a day?

780
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:57,000
Six or eight.

781
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:02,000
Surely we cannot
drink that much tea?

782
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,000
Each finished one of these
is about 15 million tea bags.

783
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:11,000
It's a big piece of paper.
It's a big roll of paper.

784
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:13,000
The three-tonne jumbo roll

785
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:17,000
is sliced into hundreds
of more manageable sizes,

786
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:21,000
and then loaded up,
ready for our tea factory.

787
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:27,000
Inside this lorry is enough paper
for nearly 50 million tea bags.

788
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:29,000
That should keep Gregg busy
for a while.

789
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:43,000
I need about 118km
of paper for my bags.

790
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:47,000
And it's already arrived
at one of the production lines.

791
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:51,000
My tea leaves were
delivered six hours ago.

792
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:54,000
Now, at last, I'm about to
turn them into tea bags.

793
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:58,000
Engineer Bob Jones is standing by.

794
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,000
Right, there's Cherry's paper.

795
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,000
Yes. So my tea, my blend,
is going down from there?

796
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:05,000
Yes. How do we make
that into a tea bag?

797
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:09,000
Show me. Right,
Cherry's reel comes around.

798
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:14,000
If you look down there, Gregg, that
slitter knife then cuts it in half.

799
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:16,000
One half runs up and over the top,

800
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:18,000
the other half
comes down the bottom.

801
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:22,000
As it comes through there,
it gets a dose of tea on it.

802
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:25,000
What size or weight
is going into each tea bag?

803
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:29,000
Each little dose of tea
is about 3g.

804
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:31,000
One side of the paper
has a wood pulp on,

805
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,000
and one side has a plastic laminate,

806
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:37,000
so that when we split it
and turn one over,

807
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:39,000
we're sandwiching the tea
between the two papers.

808
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:44,000
The two papers come together,
are compressed with heat,

809
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:47,000
that heats the plastic laminate
and seals them together.

810
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:51,000
If the heat is making it sticky
and that's sticking it together,

811
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:55,000
why doesn't it come unstuck
when I pour boiling water on it?

812
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,000
The plastic is heated at a greater
temperature than your boiling water

813
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,000
when it sticks together.

814
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,000
'The plastic will only melt
at 160 Celsius.'

815
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:08,000
This thing is going really fast.

816
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:10,000
Is there any way of slowing it down?

817
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:11,000
Yes, of course.

818
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:18,000
That's like making ravioli.

819
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:21,000
Yeah, little small pockets
with something nice in the middle.

820
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:23,000
Should we get it going again?

821
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:26,000
If we don't restart the machine,
the nation might run out of tea.

822
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:27,000
What a catastrophe.

823
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:38,000
This machine stamps out 1,500
tea bags a minute, 24 hours a day,

824
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:39,000
five days a week.

825
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,000
The excess paper is blown through
this slinky and out to recycling...

826
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:50,000
..while my stacks of bags
go into the foiling machine,

827
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:53,000
and come out in sachets of 40.

828
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,000
You've turned them into astronauts.

829
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:00,000
There we go. Sealed in
a space blanket. All right.

830
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:05,000
It's all well and good the guys here
working hard to produce

831
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:09,000
the perfect tea bag, with
the perfect blend of leaves inside,

832
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:12,000
but how do you brew
the perfect cup of tea?

833
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,000
Cherry has been getting
the scientific lowdown.

834
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:23,000
I've always been told that there is
a proper way to make a cup of tea,

835
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:24,000
and it looks like this -

836
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,000
loose-leaf tea, a porcelain teapot,

837
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:30,000
a tea strainer and some patience.

838
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:35,000
But 96% of us make a brew
using a tea bag.

839
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:38,000
So what are the golden rules
when making a cuppa

840
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:40,000
using a mug and a bag?

841
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:48,000
An expert in the science
of tea making,

842
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:51,000
Dr Stuart Farrimond
has three top tips.

843
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:56,000
We're starting with the takeaway tea
we're all familiar with,

844
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:57,000
brewed in a Styrofoam cup.

845
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:01,000
Cherry, good to see you.

846
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:02,000
Nice to see you, Doctor Stu.

847
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:06,000
First off, I want you to make
a cup of tea with a tea bag,

848
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:07,000
as you would do normally. OK.

849
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,000
Boil some water.

850
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:12,000
Tea bag in.

851
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,000
La, la, la, la.

852
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:19,000
That looks good to me.

853
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:21,000
Leaves a lot to be desired, Cherry.

854
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:22,000
How could you say that?!

855
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:26,000
What is wrong with this cup of tea?

856
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:28,000
You're using a Styrofoam cup,

857
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:31,000
which is a particularly
bad way of making tea.

858
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:36,000
Styrofoam absorbs flavour molecules,

859
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,000
reducing the tastiness of the tea.

860
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:44,000
So Stu's first tip is choose
what you drink from wisely.

861
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:49,000
There's a lot of psychology
behind when we taste things.

862
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:51,000
So here we have a nice red mug.

863
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:55,000
I love that colour. That's actually
the same colour as my mug at home.

864
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:57,000
The same drink out of a red mug

865
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:00,000
will taste sweeter
than one out of a white mug.

866
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:04,000
So our brain is a huge factor
in how we taste?

867
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:05,000
Huge.

868
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:11,000
Research shows that we associate
certain colours with certain tastes.

869
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:14,000
Red suggest ripeness and sweetness.

870
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:18,000
What else don't you like
about my cup of tea?

871
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:20,000
The type of water that you're using.

872
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:22,000
That is hard water.

873
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:25,000
What happens when you use hard water
to make a cup of tea,

874
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,000
you sometimes get that scum
on the top. Like this.

875
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,000
You've got the scum. Lovely.

876
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:36,000
So what's happening is some of
the flavour compounds are reacting

877
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:39,000
with the calcium, and then
they form this scummy layer.

878
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:40,000
So you're actually losing flavour.

879
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:43,000
What you're seeing on the top there
is actually some of flavour

880
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:45,000
that's being lost in that scum.

881
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:51,000
Tip two - if you have hard water,
filter it before boiling.

882
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:55,000
This removes some of the calcium
and magnesium residues,

883
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:58,000
and you'll get a tastier,
clearer cup.

884
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:01,000
Now I've got my cup and water right,

885
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:05,000
Stu is ready with his most
important top tea bag tip.

886
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:09,000
I would like you now to make
yourself a cup of tea,

887
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:11,000
but we're going to leave
it longer, five minutes.

888
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:14,000
Five minutes! That's a long time.

889
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:17,000
The amount of time we steep our
tea bag for does make a difference.

890
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,000
Surely the tea will be ruined.

891
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,000
Try it and see what you think.

892
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:23,000
OK.

893
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:24,000
Tea bag in.

894
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:28,000
Here we go.

895
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:36,000
I mean, I would never have the
patience to brew my tea this long.

896
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:39,000
It is a long time, but it's going
to be too hot to drink anyway,

897
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:41,000
so you've got to leave it.

898
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:45,000
Just more of the flavour coming out,

899
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:48,000
and also more caffeine comes out,
so the stronger the tea will be.

900
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:52,000
There's also more
of the antioxidants coming out.

901
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:54,000
Tea is a great source
of antioxidants,

902
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:56,000
and these are natural substances

903
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,000
that our body uses
to help fight disease.

904
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:01,000
So it is important
that you leave it to brew.

905
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:05,000
Three, two, one.

906
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:06,000
Quick, get it out.

907
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:10,000
There you go. OK. Right.

908
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:17,000
Doctor Stu can show me the
difference a five-minute brew makes

909
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:20,000
to levels of caffeine
and antioxidants in tea.

910
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:27,000
A UV spectrometer measures
the light the caffeine absorbs,

911
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:29,000
revealing its concentration.

912
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:31,000
So we've analysed that data

913
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:34,000
and we've found the amount
of caffeine in the two cups of tea.

914
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:37,000
So, in your cuppa, just 30 seconds,

915
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:40,000
there was 35mg of caffeine
in that cup.

916
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:43,000
Whereas in mine, we're
coming up to 50mg of caffeine.

917
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:46,000
So if you're a bit more patient,
you get more bang for your buck.

918
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:47,000
You do indeed.

919
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:52,000
And it's not only caffeine that
increases with that longer brew -

920
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:55,000
antioxidant levels
more than double.

921
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,000
Leaving it for extra period of time,

922
00:50:57,000 --> 00:51:01,000
you're getting a lot more of the
health benefits that are in the tea.

923
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:05,000
But does any of this actually
make any difference to taste?

924
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:10,000
You tell me
if you think it was worth it.

925
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:23,000
This actually has flavour
and tastes...

926
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:30,000
..delicious. And that makes
this taste like hot water.

927
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:37,000
So, the mug, the water,
the colour, the flavour,

928
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:39,000
it is, without doubt...

929
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:42,000
..the perfect cup of tea.

930
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:58,000
My tea bags are heading to
packaging, all 6.9 million of them.

931
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:02,000
But before they can be boxed up,

932
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:05,000
they go through a safety check
with Karen Williams.

933
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:08,000
Karen. Yes.

934
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:10,000
What happens at this bit?

935
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:12,000
Right. This is where
we do our metal check

936
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:17,000
to make sure there's no metal in
the tea. And we do this every hour.

937
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:18,000
How does it work?

938
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:22,000
This is our metal detector,
and we put the three checks through.

939
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:24,000
They have metal inside each one.

940
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:27,000
The machine is always
checking the tea bags?

941
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:28,000
Yes. I get you.

942
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:32,000
You just put it through to make sure
the machine's still working. Yes.

943
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:33,000
Since you've been here,

944
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:35,000
have you ever found
any bits of metal in the tea?

945
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:37,000
Not really. How long
have you been doing it?

946
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:40,000
29 years. Well, if you've
never seen any metal,

947
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:42,000
and you've been doing it for
nearly 30 years, what's the point?

948
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:44,000
It's safety. It's a waste of time.

949
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:47,000
It's not a waste of time. I think
they should make you redundant.

950
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:48,000
It's not a waste of time.

951
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:50,000
Is it not? No, it's not.

952
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:52,000
Right, OK. Would you like me
to do a check?

953
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:54,000
Yeah. Are we ready? Yeah.

954
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:03,000
All right, no metal
of any sort in my tea bags.

955
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:05,000
None at all.

956
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:09,000
I'm really pleased, cos I have
a reputation for quality.

957
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:10,000
Thank you very much. Thank you.

958
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:20,000
Now I need to get 240
of my tea bags into every carton,

959
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:22,000
and each sachet contains 40.

960
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:27,000
Luckily, this machine is calculating
it all so I don't have to.

961
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:32,000
And my engineer friend Bob
is helping keep count.

962
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:37,000
If you look down there, Gregg, the
sachets are firing in one at a time.

963
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:40,000
It puts two in the pocket,
then releases the pocket.

964
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:44,000
That little black container
you call a pocket? Pocket, yep.

965
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:48,000
The machine has to do
240 tea bags in one box.

966
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:50,000
So there's two sachets
in each pocket,

967
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:54,000
so we need three pockets to go past
to make the count right.

968
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:56,000
Now what happens?

969
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:58,000
Follow it down the line.

970
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:01,000
The conveyor takes
each six-pack of sachets

971
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:02,000
to meet their cartons.

972
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,000
So, those suckers,
they're taking the box.

973
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:07,000
What I love is this -

974
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:10,000
this bit of machinery
that basically opens the box up.

975
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:11,000
Opens and closes them.

976
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:15,000
I like that little fella,
that's spinning around,

977
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:17,000
and his job
is to close the flaps. Yep.

978
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:19,000
That's his only job.

979
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:21,000
But he seems to be doing it
with a great deal of enthusiasm.

980
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:32,000
The machine is filling 25 cartons
a minute, that's 6,000 bags.

981
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:36,000
So, after just an hour,

982
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:39,000
all my 6.9 million tea bags
are boxed up

983
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:41,000
and look ready for the shelf.

984
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:46,000
We're almost there, aren't we?
Almost at the end of the line.

985
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,000
Now we're going to see
the cartons go into the outer.

986
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:51,000
These outers are thick enough
to protect the cartons,

987
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:54,000
whether they're travelling
by road, sea or air.

988
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:57,000
Right, there we go.

989
00:54:57,000 --> 00:54:59,000
Pack of eight.

990
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,000
Folds them, glues them
and sends them on their way.

991
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:04,000
Fabulous.

992
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:07,000
I feel a bit sad
to say goodbye to my tea bags.

993
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:14,000
Now it's up to Robbie the Robot's
little brother

994
00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:18,000
to distribute my boxes
neatly onto 52 pallets.

995
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:30,000
So it stacks this
in the set pattern...

996
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:32,000
Yep. ..every time?

997
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:35,000
They look like they're alive,
don't they? They really do.

998
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:37,000
Do they look like a dinosaur to you?

999
00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:39,000
Well... What does it
look like to you?

1000
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:40,000
Like a big giraffe
with a very long neck.

1001
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:42,000
GREGG LAUGHS

1002
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:48,000
My tea blend and I
have finally made it to dispatch.

1003
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:54,000
6? hours ago, I saw my
black tea leaves arrive from Kenya.

1004
00:55:57,000 --> 00:56:01,000
Now, after being transformed
into 20 tonnes of blended tea bags,

1005
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:04,000
they're being loaded
back onto lorries.

1006
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:12,000
Helping send them off
is operations manager Danny.

1007
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:13,000
Ah!

1008
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:15,000
Now, I've never seen one of them.

1009
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:19,000
That appears to be
a double-decker lorry.

1010
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:20,000
Did you have that made?

1011
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:22,000
Yeah, the company made it
specifically for us.

1012
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:24,000
I've never seen anything like that.

1013
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:26,000
I suppose you could do that
cos the tea is relatively light.

1014
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:29,000
That's correct, yeah.
How many boxes on there?

1015
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:31,000
So there's 2,800, Gregg.

1016
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:33,000
How many tea bags is that,
do you know?

1017
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:36,000
Roughly, I'd say just over
5 million tea bags in there, Gregg.

1018
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:37,000
Over 5 million.

1019
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:41,000
Do you hold them in storage here?
No, we don't store anything on site.

1020
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:43,000
So as soon as they're made,
they're loaded up onto the truck?

1021
00:56:43,000 --> 00:56:45,000
Loaded up on the truck
and they leave site.

1022
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:47,000
All for the UK market?

1023
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:49,000
Majority is the UK market, Gregg,

1024
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:51,000
but we do to another
30 countries worldwide.

1025
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:54,000
I think we'd best move
and let the lads get this loaded.

1026
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:56,000
30 countries around the world.

1027
00:56:56,000 --> 00:56:58,000
We should go on a tour. Definitely.

1028
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:00,000
Gregg and Danny's TT tour.

1029
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:06,000
As well as landing on the shelves
of shops all over Britain,

1030
00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:11,000
some of my 6.9 million tea bags will
head off right around the world.

1031
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:18,000
The keenest customers are in Canada,
the US, Ireland and Japan.

1032
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:25,000
There it is, my batch of tea bags.

1033
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:29,000
You know, this is a big factory
and it handles a lot of volume,

1034
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:32,000
and that's impressive. But I've seen
a fair few big factories now,

1035
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:35,000
and what really impresses me,
in fact, amazes me,

1036
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:39,000
is I thought tea bags just had one
type of tea in them, but they don't.

1037
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:42,000
They bring in tea from all over
the world and they have to make

1038
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:44,000
a different recipe
and blend them together

1039
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:47,000
every time they make
a batch of tea bags,

1040
00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:52,000
so that our cup of tea taste exactly
the same time and time again.

1041
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:53,000
Now, that is impressive!

1042
00:58:01,000 --> 00:58:04,000
'Next time, we head overseas
to Italy...'

1043
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:06,000
Tutti spaghetti! It's a waterfall!

1044
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:09,000
'..and the largest pasta factory
in the world...'

1045
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:10,000
Six tonnes every hour?

1046
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:13,000
100 worms coming down.

1047
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:17,000
'..revealing the secrets
to making 300,000 tonnes a day.'

1048
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:20,000
Every single one of these wheels
is one more pasta shape?

1049
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:24,000
'And Cherry makes a super-sized
batch of sauce to go with it.'

1050
00:58:24,000 --> 00:58:28,000
It's like a really odd video game.

1051
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:30,000
That is fantastic and funny.

1052
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:38,000
HE SLURPS

1053
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:03,000
From status symbol

1054
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:05,000
to guilty pleasure,

1055
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:08,000
BBC TWO reveals the bittersweet
history of sugar.