PURPOSE: To keep freshness of raw tea leaves without lowering cooling effect on raw tea leaves, by providing a floor of a storage chamber of tea leaves with a ventilating plate and setting a little gap between a raking conveyor and the floor.

CONSTITUTION: When raw tea leaves are raked up, the feed conveyor 14 and the transportation conveyer 15 are driven, and the trestle 9 is advanced while the raking conveyer 10 is rotated. Raw tea leaves existing on the advance track of the raking conveyor 10 are raked up, send from the feed conveyor 14 and the transportation conveyor 15 to a steamer. Then, when raw tea leaves are fed to the storage chamber 25, the trestle 9 is properly traveled forward and backward at the initial stage, the position of the raking conveyor 10 is changed, the raw tea leaves are raked uniformly, so that the all surface of the ventilating plate 8 is covered with the raw tea leaves. By controlling the tea leaves in this way, the tea leaves are cooled immediately after they are fed to the storage chamber 25, so freshness of the tea leaves can be kept.