Jane Milton, first to qualify in UK as a TAC Tea Sommelier Professional
Having been asked by a number of clients to help them make choices about , teas they could add to their foods to add specific flavours or give a certain benefit to the food, opportunities for making products with tea, helping businesses who blend or produce tea establish themsleves in the UK market or about the opportunities to use tea as an alternative to sugary drinks or alcohol, it became clear to Jane that she needed to know a lot more about tea, the industry, the processes, types fo tea, blending, packaging, and using teas.
Jane attended the Dilmah School of Tea ( link to this) in Sri Lanka in 2014 and learned a huge amount from Dilmah about tea types, processes, the regions where it grows, the skills of the people who prepare tea, pairing tea with food and making alcoholic and non-alcoholic….not to mention all the amazing tea people she met through that process.
Spurred on by this, Jane was advised that should she want to learn more, the Tea Association of Canada Certified Tea Sommelier, was one of the best courses she could undertake.
Jane enrolled and spent just over 2 years learning more about tea types, regions, growing, processing, making teas, tasting teas, tea and health and a lot more. After each module she was examined, and then her final exam consisted of an oral with the President of the Tea Association of Canada, which was on the History and Mythology of Tea, a written exam and a blind cupping. This March Jane qualified at a Certified TAC Tea Sommelier, the first UK resident to qualify.
From the beginning of the course she has been putting her knowledge to great use helping tea businesses, cake and ice cream producers, and more recently taking to businesses about tea and health and the benefits of tea for wellbeing.
How could Jane apply her tea knowledge to help your business ?