JPS6320B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a tea making machine in which tea astringency does not adhere, and even if it does adhere, it can be easily removed.

In the tea manufacturing process, the deeper the tea leaves are steamed, the better the flavor of the tea product will be obtained, but on the other hand, deep steaming will result in excessive water content, making the tea leaves soft and damaged.
Deterioration and discoloration are likely to occur, and a lot of tea astringency comes out from the tea leaves and adheres to the tea making machine. Therefore, when manufacturing a large amount of tea leaves, the tea manufacturing process gradually becomes difficult to proceed smoothly and work efficiency deteriorates, and the tea leaves are even more damaged due to the astringency that has adhered to them. In addition, the adhering tea stains could not be easily peeled off, resulting in longer downtime and significantly lowering production capacity.

Currently, movable parts such as the kneading hands and stirring hands of tea machines are coated with semi-rigid, thin heat-shrinkable tubes with a wall thickness of 0.1 mm or less made from vinyl chloride resin with a relatively low degree of polymerization by heat-shrinking. It is also used to coat rubber tubes for bicycles. Additionally, a tea machine in which fixed parts such as the tea leaf storage barrel are lined with polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon, manufactured by Dupont) has been tested. However, those covered with heat-shrinkable tubes made of vinyl chloride resin quickly deteriorate due to the poor heat resistance of vinyl chloride resin.
Moreover, it has low bending strength and abrasion resistance, and has the disadvantage that small pieces of vinyl chloride resin get mixed in during the tea making process.
The drawback was that the rubber odor was transferred to the tea leaves, reducing the aroma and taste of the final tea product. Furthermore, the rubber tube has poorer heat resistance and bending strength than vinyl chloride with a low degree of polymerization, and deteriorates in a short period of time, so it has to be replaced frequently. Those lined with polytetrafluoroethylene have the disadvantage that the tea leaves slip and cannot be twisted, making it impossible to make tea because the coefficient of friction of polytetrafluoroethylene is small.

The inventors of the present invention have conducted various studies with the aim of providing a tea making machine that does not impair the quality of tea products and does not cause tea astringency, and as a result, we have found that the parts of the tea making machine that come into contact with tea leaves can be coated with a special synthetic resin. The present invention was achieved by discovering that the object of the present invention can be achieved by configuring the present invention.

That is, the gist of the present invention resides in a tea making machine characterized in that a movable part or a fixed part of the tea making machine that comes into contact with tea leaves is coated or constructed with a vinyl chloride polymer having an average degree of polymerization of 1500 or more.

The present invention will be explained in more detail below.

The tea making machine of the present invention is a general term for machines that perform all processes from the steaming process of picked or harvested tea leaves to the final rolling. Specifically, it includes a steaming machine for raw tea leaves,
A cooling machine that cools steamed tea leaves, a heat treatment machine that heat-treats steamed tea leaves with twisted hot air while removing moisture, a coarse rolling machine that dries steamed tea leaves while twisting them,
This includes medium rolling machines, rolling machines, fine rolling machines, as well as bucket conveyors and belt conveyors for transporting tea leaves.

In addition, the movable parts of the tea machine specifically include the tea leaf storage rotary mesh barrel of the steamer, the central stirring shaft, the stirring blades provided on the stirring shaft, the mesh conveyor of the cooling machine,
In the heat treatment machine, the rotary mesh barrel, the rolling hand of the coarse rolling machine or the medium rolling machine, the stirring leaf roughening hand and the rotating storage barrel, the tea leaf storage barrel and rolling pressure lid of the rolling machine, the rolling hand, the secondary rolling hand or the rolling pressure plate of the fine rolling machine, Other examples include belt conveyors, bucket conveyors, etc., and are not particularly limited to these.

On the other hand, the fixed parts of a tea machine include the tea leaf storage barrel of the coarse rolling machine and medium rolling machine, other parts that come in contact with tea leaves, the special wavy rolling lower receiving plate of the rolling machine, and the specially waved lower rolling base plate of the fine rolling machine. This also refers to, but is not particularly limited to, these.

Among these tea making machines, the present invention is particularly effective for equipment that generates a lot of tea astringency or has a lot of tea astringency attached to it, such as a rough rolling machine, a medium rolling machine, a steamer, and a conveyor.

The present invention provides for the movable or fixed parts of commonly used tea machines to have an average degree of polymerization of 1500 or more, preferably
It is coated with or composed of a vinyl chloride polymer having a high polymerization degree of 1700 or more, particularly 2000 or more. Even if the vinyl chloride-based polymer is a vinyl chloride homopolymer, vinyl chloride is the main component, and comonomers copolymerizable therewith, such as ethylene, propylene, vinyl acetate, styrene, butadiene acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, 2 It may also be a copolymer with -hydroxyethyl acrylate, 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate, 3-hydroxybutyl acrylate, ethyl-2-hydroxyethyl fumarate, hydroxybutyl vinyl ether, diallyl phthalate, etc. In addition, the vinyl chloride polymer may be used in combination with a low polymerization degree vinyl chloride resin with an average polymerization degree of 1500 or less or other resins with good compatibility; In order not to impair the physical properties of the coalescence, the mixing ratio of other resins is preferably 50% by weight or less, preferably 30% by weight or less.

The vinyl chloride polymer used in the tea making machine of the present invention is used as a soft, semi-hard, or hard composition by adjusting the amount of plasticizer added depending on the movable or fixed portion that is coated or constituted. Soft compositions are generally used in the movable parts of the kneading hands and stirring hands of rough kneading machines, medium kneading machines, fine kneading machines, etc., and semi-rigid to hard compositions are generally used in the housing body walls of coarse kneading machines and medium kneading machines. It is often used for the lower rolling support of rolling machines, and the lower rolling base of fine rolling machines.

However, movable parts such as the rotating mesh and stirring blade of a tea leaf steamer, the mesh conveyor of a cooling machine, the rotating mesh barrel of a heat treatment machine, the tea leaf storage body wall of a rolling machine, and the rolling pressure lid are usually covered with semi-hard or semi-hard materials. or is preferably configured. In any case, it is sufficient to use a hardness suitable for the part to be used. Therefore, the hardness of the soft composition is determined using the American Standard Test Method (hereinafter referred to as "ASTM").
The hardness of semi-hard to hard compositions is 40 to 80 in A type hardness (hereinafter referred to as "Shorr A hardness") measured based on D2240, and the hardness of semi-hard to hard compositions is D type hardness (hereinafter referred to as "Shorr D hardness") in accordance with ASTM D2240. Particularly preferred is a range of 35-85. Of course, various additives such as antioxidants, heat deterioration inhibitors, inorganic or organic fillers, pigments, detergents, etc. may be blended into the above-mentioned soft, semi-hard and hard compositions.

In order to coat or construct each part of a tea machine with a vinyl chloride polymer, for example, a tube obtained from a soft composition of a vinyl chloride polymer, a sheet or a molded article obtained from a semi-rigid to hard composition, and is used in the form of a PVC steel plate coated with a vinyl chloride polymer composition. For example, movable parts such as kneading hands of coarse kneading machines, medium kneading machines, and refining machines, stirring hands, etc., have a wall thickness molded from a soft composition.
A tube of 0.1 to 3 mm, preferably 0.5 to 2 mm, is covered and fixed with appropriate means such as bolts, nuts, and obi bands, and the tea leaf storage body is preferably made of a semi-hard or hard composition with a wall thickness of 1 to 10 mm. is 2~5mm
An extruded sheet, a calender sheet, etc. is covered and fixed by appropriate means. In particular, the corrugated lower half-arc rolling part of rough rolling machines and medium rolling machines, and the special wave-like lower rolling base plate of fine rolling machines, should be covered with irregular extrusion molded products having the respective shapes, or the lower half-arc rolling part It is preferable that the lower kneading table itself is made of a profile extrusion molded product. In addition, it is better to directly construct the storage shell etc. using PVC steel plates.
This eliminates the need for subsequent work to cover and fix sheets, etc., which is particularly preferable in terms of manufacturing tea machines. Other rotating nets, mesh conveyors, etc. are usually made of wire coated with a vinyl chloride polymer, but may also be made of vinyl chloride obtained from a vinyl chloride polymer. Although various ways of using the vinyl chloride polymer have been listed above, the ways of using the present invention are by no means limited to these ways, and may vary depending on the purpose of the tea making machine, the manufacturing workability of the tea making machine, etc. The form can be adopted as appropriate.

As specific examples of the tea making machine of the present invention, a rough rolling machine and a fine rolling machine will be described in detail, but the tea making machine of the present invention is not limited to these machines. FIG. 1 is a longitudinal sectional side view of the rough kneading machine, FIG. 2 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of the kneading hands of the rough kneading machine, and FIG. 3 is a partially cutaway side view of the stirring hand.

In the figure, 1 is the machine frame, 2 is the tea leaf storage barrel, 3 is the rotating shaft, 5 is the kneading hand attached to the rotating shaft 3 via the arm lever 4, and 7 is attached to the rotating shaft 3 via the arm lever 6. 8 is a lower half-arc-shaped kneading part of the tea leaf storage body 2.

As shown in FIG. 2, the kneading hands 5 are formed by covering the entire kneading hand core 10 with a tube 9 obtained from a soft composition of a vinyl chloride polymer. It is preferable that the length of the inner circumference of the tube 9 is equal to or slightly larger than the length of the outer circumference of the kneading core 10, that is, the tube 9 can be inserted and covered with the kneading core 10 without resistance. Further, the appropriate wall thickness is in the range of 1 to 2 mm.
The kneading core 10 may be the kneading hands of a conventional rough kneading machine. As shown in FIG. 3, the stirring hand 7 is constructed by covering a core 12 of the stirring hand 12 with a tube 11 made of the same material as the tube 9. The wall thickness of the tube 11 may be about the same as that of the tube 9, but it is preferable that the stirring leaf roughening hand core 12 and the tube 11 are in close contact with each other, and the length of the inner circumference of the tube 11 is the same as that of the stirring leaf roughening. Preferably, the length is equal to or slightly shorter than the outer circumference of the hand core 12. By doing so, it is possible to omit a fixing means when coating the agitation rough hand core 12. Of course, it is preferable that the tube 9 or 11 be sealed at the tip of the kneading core 10 or the stirring core 12. The lower semi-arc shaped twisting portion 8 is formed by covering the lower half of the tea leaf storage body 2 with a wavy irregularly formed semi-rigid or rigid composition of vinyl chloride polymer. The molded product is used as a substitute for bamboo material in conventional roughing machines, and is obtained by press-forming multiple corrugated shapes at once before extrusion molding, and the wall thickness is large in the thick parts. (crest part of wave)
It is preferable that the thickness be about 4 to 6 mm. These 1 to 5 sheets, or at most about 10 sheets, are covered and fixed to the lower part of the storage cylinder 2 by an appropriate method. As will be described later, this molded product has effects that could not be expected from bamboo materials.

In the rough rolling machine of the present invention, the tea leaves introduced into the storage barrel 2 are mixed with the irregular shaped product of the corrugated lower half-arc shaped rolling part 8 and the rolling hands 5.
It can be twisted extremely well between the tube 9 and the tube 9 coated with the tube. Although the lower part of the storage barrel 2 and the kneading hands 5 of the rough kneading machine are made of vinyl chloride polymer, it goes without saying that other parts may be coated with vinyl chloride polymer.

FIG. 4 is a side view of the fine rolling machine of the present invention. In the figure, 40 is a machine frame, 41 is a fine rolling machine, 42 is a swing shaft,
43 is a weight rod, 44 is a hanging frame, 45 is a kneading hand, 46 is a sub-kneading hand, 47 is a scraping board, 48 is a swinging arm, and 49 is a kneading board.

In the fine kneading machine of the present invention, kneading hands 45, sub-kneading hands 46,
The scraping plate 47 is coated with a soft composition of a vinyl chloride polymer, and the scraping board 49 is made of a special wave-edged molded product of a semi-rigid or hard composition of a vinyl chloride polymer. The fine kneading machine of the present invention covers the kneading hands, sub-kneading hands, and scraping plate of the conventional fine kneading machine with tubes made of a soft composition of vinyl chloride polymer, and the kneading plate is made into a specially shaped shaped product with wave blades. It can also be obtained by replacing.

The tea making machine of the present invention uses a vinyl chloride polymer with an average degree of polymerization of 1500 or more for its movable or fixed parts, so that it differs from the lower half-arc rolling part made of bamboo material in conventional coarse rolling machines, for example. , it is possible to prevent the adhesion of tea astringency during the tea manufacturing process, eliminating the need to stop the tea manufacturing process to remove tea astringency, and even if tea astringency adheres to a special place, it can be done extremely easily without using a metal spatula, etc. It can be peeled off, allowing you to clean and remove tea stains in a short time. Furthermore, since cleaning tools such as metal spatulas are not used, the tea making machine will not be damaged.

In addition, since tea astringency does not adhere and accumulate, tea leaves will not be damaged.
Tea production can be continued for a long time without deterioration or discoloration, making it extremely efficient and labor-saving.

Furthermore, the most characteristic feature of the present invention is that the vinyl chloride polymer used in the tea making machine of the present invention exhibits rubber-like elasticity at the temperature of the tea making process, and has a softness and feel similar to human skin. The tea products produced by the tea making machine of the present invention have a fragrance similar to that of hand-kneaded tea in the past.
A tea product with excellent taste and flavor can be obtained.

Furthermore, since the vinyl chloride polymer used in the tea making machine of the present invention has a high degree of polymerization with an average degree of polymerization of 1500 or more, the tea making machine of the present invention can be obtained from a vinyl chloride resin with a low degree of polymerization having an average degree of polymerization of 1500 or less. It has better heat resistance, bending strength, and abrasion resistance than heat-shrinkable tubes or bicycle rubber tubes.
Even if the wall thickness of the vinyl chloride polymer is small, there is no fear that the vinyl chloride polymer will be mixed into tea products, and the tea making machine of the present invention can be used for a very long period of time.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a longitudinal sectional side view of a rough rolling machine which is a type of tea making machine of the present invention, Fig. 2 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of the rolling hands of the first rough rolling machine, and Fig. 3 is a side view of the same stirring hand. FIG. 4 is a side view of the fine rolling machine. In the figure, 2 is a tea leaf storage barrel, 5 is a rolling hand, 7 is a stirring leaf roughening hand, 8 is a semi-arc shaped rolling part under the storage barrel, 41 is a fine rolling board, 45 is a rolling hand, and 49 is a rolling board.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A movable part or fixed part of a tea making machine that comes into contact with tea leaves is coated or constructed with a soft composition or a semi-hard or hard composition whose main component is a vinyl chloride polymer having an average degree of polymerization of 1500 or more. , and the type A hardness (Shorr A hardness) of the soft composition measured based on American Standard Test Method (ASTM) D2240 is 40 to 80, and the D type hardness (Shorr D hardness) of the semi-hard to hard composition is 35. A tea making machine characterized by ~85. 2 Tea making machines include coarse rolling machine, medium rolling machine, rolling machine, fine rolling machine,
The tea making machine according to claim 1, which is a tea leaf steamer, a tea leaf cooling machine, a heat treatment machine, or a tea leaf transfer conveyor. 3. The tea making machine according to claim 1, wherein the movable part is coated or constructed with a soft composition. 4. The tea making machine according to claim 1, wherein the fixed portion is coated or constructed with a semi-hard or hard composition.