A reappraisal of the Boruah Continuous RoUer

The Boruah Continuous Roller (BCR) was designed in the mid 70s with the objective of making orthodox tea rolling a continuous process. It had added advantages of saving in manpower, space, capital investment with reduced installation, operation and maintenance expenditures. The machine was patented in t 979 and put to commercial use in several estates in Assam. Regional trials were also conducted with the machine at Darjeeling and South India. Due to concurrent shift in the industry from Orthodox to CTC tea, the machine had lost its market prematurely. With increase in demand in orthodox tea an attempt was made by TRA to re-confirm the utility ofthe BCR. Studies were commenced at MTF, Tocklai, and also at a commercial factory in Upper Assam with this goal. Results indicated that 3''<1 rolled and coarse leaf of BCR produced teas on a par with or better than conventionally rolled teas.