This can be your cup of tea

Usha Albuquerque

If you love drinking tea why not get paid for doing just that? Tea is one of the most refreshing and popular beverages across the world, and India is the world’s largest consumer of tea and also the largest producer and exporter, although so little is known about the wide scope for careers in the tea industry.

Tea is a semi-agricultural product made from drying and processing the leaves of the tea plant. Much of the work is centered around the tea gardens — as the plantations are called — where the tea bushes are cultivated, and factories where the fresh tea leaves are processed. 

Several varieties of teas from different gardens are brought to tea auction centres, where auctions are held every week for the domestic sale and export of tea. Here there are specialised tea tasting experts who decide the fate of the teas from the gardens, mix it and price it accordingly. Tea companies employ tea tasters adept at blending the teas, and marketing personnel who handle the sales and distribution of the different brands. 

The quality of tea depends on its flavour, and so tea-tasting is a highly specialised area of work. Tea tasters have to develop a fine sense of distinction between the taste and aroma of different teas. 

Tea tasting involves looking at the brightness (blackish or brownish), colour (like coppery or deep red), strength and body of the tea, and flavour, to be able to distinguish teas according to their type, specific region and quality, and to examine the evenness, colour or brightness of dry/ infused leafs to know the strength and body of the tea. Most tea companies employ tea tasters for ensuring quality standards, and preparing blends. 

The tea you finally choose to drink depends on a tea taster’s palate — it is the ultimate testing ground.

Getting in

Anyone with an interest in this field can become a tea taster. There are some diploma and certificate training programmes which offer the basic scientific knowledge and tea testing techniques for tea tasting, which requires a basic educational background of Class XII from any stream. 

However, graduates with any degree are normally preferred by employers and possibily one in Agricultural Science or a BSc. in Botany, Food Sciences, Horticulture or allied fields so that you have a better understanding of the procedures behind tea production and processing of tea leaves. The duration of the courses range from 3 months to 1 year and includes some practical training at a tea estate, auction house, tea brokerage firms and marketing companies. There are also courses in tea management which include modules on tea tasting.

Most tea tasting courses concentrate on training you to identify the type of tea, and grade its quality by an understanding of the colour, brightness, the density and the texture or strength of the beverage. 

By the end of the training your palate will be proficient enough to register even minute differences. 

You will be able to make out by just sniffing the tea and inhaling its aroma, examining how even is the texture to calculate and figure out the minute differences and the strength of the cup of tea. 

You will also learn about tea cultivation, the manufacturing process, sales and marketing as well. 

Where to work 

Tea tasters work in the tea gardens, or with tea trading companies or buying houses in the marketing and blending departments, tea auctions and with tea brokerage firms.  At the tea estates and factories tea tasters advise growers  on the commercial factors like taste, economic viability and maturabilty for tea development. 

There are also jobs in Tea Plantations and Associations and positions on the Tea Board of India where you can be employed as research personnel and tea consultants. Tea tasters are also required to attend national and international tea auctions studying marketing and blending techniques, and marketing trends. India's 170-year-old tea industry while struggling with climate change factors and increasing costs still makes India the second largest tea producer and the world’s fourth largest exporter of tea offering direct employment to 1.2 million people. 

New varieties of teas and premium blends are being marketed by start-ups ventures, and tea bars and lounges are changing the image of tea drinking, like what Café Coffee Day did to coffee drinking, particularly among the youth. The market for green tea, thanks to its perceived health benefits, and other specialty, fruit & herbal teas is also widening.

So if you have keen taste buds, and can keep away from smoking, alcohol and spicy foods,as you sip your next cuppa…  think of the exciting and non run-of-the-mill career you could have as a tea taster!.

Institute watch

Institutes offering tea tasting courses:

• Assam Agricultural University -Department of Tea Husbandry and Technology
• Ch Sarwan Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya - Dept of Tea Husbandry & Technology, Palampur, Himachal pradesh
• Assam Darjeeling Tea Research Center, Kurseong, West Bengal.
• Birla Institute of Futuristic Studies, Kolkata.
• Dipras Institute of Professional Studies, Kolkata.
• Indian Institute of Plantation Management, Bangalore
• Darjeeling Tea Research and Management Association NITM, Darjeeling
• Tea Tasters Academy in Coonoor in the Nilgiris 
• The Tea Research Association at Jorhat, Assam

There are a variety of jobs one can specialise in the tea industry. 

Plantation work: which involves the nurturing and growth of the tea plant in the gardens, the subsequent plucking, processing and packaging of the tea leaves. 

Auctioning work: The various samples of tea from different plantations are tested, blended and branded by the tea tasters and tea brokers in the auction centres. Most tea brokers have a background in tea planting, and  have developed finely tuned abilities in tea tasting.   

Marketing: Different varieties of tea bought in bulk are then blended and marketed according to their flavours, and the taste requirements of different consumers.

Tea Research: There is much research work being conducted by scientists- botanists, bio-technologists and others - for producing disease resistant, high yielding varieties of tea, as also strains which produce leafs that are natural blends of various teas. Tea tasters also advise researchers on the commercial factors like taste, economic viability and maturabilty for tea development.