Orthodox treatment was much more gentle than CTC which was rather more brutal in reducing the tea leaf from while leaf to smaller particle size. CTC stands for crush-tear-curl or cut-tear-curl.
In orthodox method, the withered leaves are place in a cylindrical roller that mechanically squeezes then to release their flavor.
CTC is a machine-processed tea which the leaves pass between tow sharpened rollers and the tea is heavily bruised and pulverized, resulting in uniform pellets of tea which look a lot like instant coffee. It is small particles that produce a quick brewing and strong tea.
CTC style tea is very suitable for tea bag production. CTC are produced for meant of the low end market, whereas orthodox variety is for the high end market.
CTC tea
