The diagram illustrates how tea leaves are processed to make five different types of tea.
Overall, all productions start and end with the same steps for all the kinds of tea. White tea has the least amount of steps: only going through the necessary phases, which all the types go through. First, the leaves are grown, and when they are ready to harvest, they are plucked. The harvested leaves go through a withering process. Afterwards, they are wilted and ready to undergo the next steps.
The next phase is having the leaves steamed for green tea, it is the only sort that requires this step. When this is finished, the leaves have their structure changed: for green, oolong, and large leaf black tea, the leaves are rolled; for small leaf black tea, they are crushed. Oolong tea leaves go through a slight fermentation process, whilst both types of black tea have to have their black leaves go through full fermentation.
This finishes all the preparation work, and for all of the kinds of tea, the only phase left is oven drying. After the drying process, the tea is ready for use, whatever it may be.