A taste for tea

"Blending tea, like blending whisky or champagne, is a fine art,” notes Sebastian Michaelis, master tea blender for Tetley, the largest brand of Tata Global Beverages (TGBL), according to a report dated August 31, 2015 in The Economic Times (ET). A tea taster doesn’t actually drink much tea, according to Michaelis. Stating that tea tasting is a very noisy affair, Michaelis elaborated that the tea is brewed incredibly strong "to ensure we pick up all the finer notes and flavors and then we use a dessert spoon to slurp the liquid and spit it out.” It has to be seen, or heard, to believe, the master taster is reported to have said.
TGBL having insured Michaelis’ taste buds for one million pounds, he modestly states in an email interview to the paper that "the insurance ... is a reflection of the amount of time and effort the company has invested in my training, and the importance it places on ensuring the best quality blends. I am very humbled.” The report continues that Michaelis tastes "hundreds of teas a day and thousands in a week,” and during his tenure with Tetley since 2005, the 32-year-old connoisseur has tasted close to 500,000 teas.

Teas from Tetley

Michaelis, who needs "to keep an eagle eye on global consumer trends,” believes that TGBL is seeing the green, fruit and herbal market growing across geographies, "influenced by the growing importance consumers place on health and wellness as well as an increased willingness to experiment...” Informing readers that the green tea segment has seen rapid growth in India, ET states that blenders need to develop a portfolio of green tea options. According to the philosophy graduate from University of Sussex who took to tea, preferences in India vary across regions, so "blenders need to be able to create varying blends, depending on whether a strong brew is preferred or a milder...”
Every blend of tea is taste tested eight times before it enters the market, a TGBL spokesperson is quoted in the ET report. Which is why the company, whose blenders have more than 900 years of combined tea tasting experience, "invests heavily in training the tasters.” It takes a minimum of five years before tasters are considered "qualified,” mentions the report.
The annual report for 2014-15 of TGBL, the second largest tea company in the world, is focused on the theme of "Blending makes our business better.” The report states that the world of tea is vast and complex and navigating it requires a common language. "At TGBL, we developed a unique tea tasting language called Uhuru (meaning freedom in Swahili).” Uhuru is used to define each tea they source. "We give numeric values to important characteristics such as leaf appearance, the visual appearance of the brewed tea as well as its flavor and mouth-feel,” it states.