Traditional tea-seed oil mill in SE China

Oil is extracted from tea-seed cakes. [Photo/china.com.cn]

"There are only four oil mills left in the village," said Li Huidou, owner of a traditional hand-pressed tea-seed oil mill in Hongtian Village in southeast China’s Fujian province. He and his brother, Li Huihuang, inherited this mill from their parents.

It’s not easy to extract tea-seed oil by hand. Before the tea seeds go into the semi-automatic oil press machine, they need to be shaped into cakes with a diameter of 33 centimeters and thickness of 5 centimeters by hand.

"With the appearance of the modern press machines, few young people want to learn the traditional craft of oil extraction," said Li Huihuang.