Tea sommeliers are the new wine sommeliers. Tea sommelier classes and certification programs are slowly becoming popular all over the world as tea drinking enjoys an incredible surge in popularity. Some love tea as a healthy alternative to juice or pop, whereas others enjoy the irresistible dessert blends. A tea sommelier is someone whose expertise lies in, well, tea!

What is a Tea Sommelier?

Tea sommeliers are people who, much like wine sommeliers, are trained in the taste, history, and general knowledge of tea. Similar to wine sommelier, they can recommend how to better prepare and consume tea and can create tasting menus. Moreover, they have knowledge of the steeped leaf that runs the gamut. Some tea sommeliers who have especially deep tea knowledge have been known to tell you what mountain a tea was grown on. And, they can do that just by tasting the leaf’s liquor. Those people are like magicians. All of us have our specialties, of course. Some might be experts in blending and scented tea, some might be Indian black tea experts. Some might be handy in the history of Taiwanese tea cultivars. Others might be soil and terroir nerds.

What Jobs Do Tea Sommeliers Do?

You can expect to see tea sommeliers running tea shops, being hired at high-end hotels to design tea menus and offer advice to restaurant proprietors. In Canada, there is a Certified Tea Sommelier program. The Tea and Herbal Association of Canada has graduated tea sommeliers in Canada, the US, Denmark, India, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, France, Hong Kong, Columbia, Mexico, and South Korea. There are also students in Norway, Switzerland, South Africa, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Morocco, Mauritius, Brazil, Australia, Japan, and Indonesia. So, as you can see, it’s quite a global program and there are many job perspectives for tea sommeliers around the world.

Evaluation

In order to evaluate a tea, a sommelier needs to use their eyes, nose, and tongue. The process usually entails first looking at the tea. It includes both the color of the brewed tea and the appearance of the wet leaves. Thus, sommeliers use their noses to take in the notes of the tea’s fragrance, which may or may not match up with the taste of the tea. Tea sommelier jobs are booming. Therefore, it is certain that more and more people will be taking up this career in the future! It's exciting, fun and a dream job for tea lovers. For more interesting tea stories, visit Teablom!