LTP
LTP is CTC's less famous sibling: a different machine reaching for the same result, small, fast-brewing particles, by tearing the leaf apart with rotating blades instead of crushing it between rollers.
What it is
A rotating swing hammer-mill leaf disintegrator, named for the company that promoted it. The withered leaf is torn and broken into tiny particles by a series of knives and beaters on a fast-rotating shaft, rather than passed between the toothed rollers a CTC machine uses.
Where you meet it
Wherever CTC-style small-particle black tea is made, as an alternative or a companion to the CTC rollers, particularly across parts of East and Central Africa.
How to read it
Read LTP the same way as CTC: a machine choice aimed at the same small, fast-brewing particle size, not a different grade of tea.
A common mistake
Treating LTP as a synonym for CTC. They are two different machines built for the same purpose and often used in the same factory line, not interchangeable names for one process.
Sources
- LTP (Lawrie Tea Processor) is a rotating swing hammer-mill leaf disruptor, named for the company that promoted it, used as an alternative to CTC rollers. Willson & Clifford, eds., Tea: Cultivation to Consumption (Chapman & Hall, 1992)