2015-09-14
TEA BLENDER : A PROFESSION ANDS A PASSION
A Tea Blender is a genuine craftsman, an author of tea. This expert draws on several different teas to create a new blend and a new tea.
Combining, blending and assembling teas to create a unique blend requires an understanding of the rules (for example: which products are available at which times of the year and what they taste like; and in-depth knowledge of the various producing countries, characteristics of the various regions and of course the characteristics of each plantation’s production).
When working on a new creation, the Blender is almost like a composer visualising a future work through the timbres and keys at hand. Less well known is the blending done every season in order to ensure that from year to year consumers enjoy a consistent taste for each blend. Practice makes perfect, therefore the Tea Blender must build up years of experience and create a personal «taste library» in which the flavors, characters and characteristics of each tea and blend are recorded.
Every day, this memorisation exercise needs to be repeated in order to tirelessly educate and maintain the palate. At Dammann Frères, hundreds of tea batches are tasted every week. This enables the right supplies to be selected in order to reproduce the taste and quality of the blends for which we are famous.
