Finding Quality

Tea Taster

Our quality finders - A very special "sensual" team

How on earth do they do that? All over the world there are thousands of tea varieties that differ according to plant, origin, climate, cultivation, picking, harvesting and processing methods. Again and again, chief tea taster Thomas Holz and his team, Jonathan Gschwendner, Daniel Mack and Lukasz  Parobij, find the right tea within a flood of samples. They “read” a whole range of criteria like taste, smell, quality of the leaf and color of the cup within the context of the country of origin and determine quality and price by this. If you watch the tea tasters smelling, sipping and quickly forming their opinion at the tea tasting counter, you start to understand how they filter such qualities, year by year: with acumen! The highly sensitive tongues of our tea tasters are their most invaluable capital – and also TeaGschwendner’s.

The entire range in their minds

But the job just starts with tasting the samples. Always with the complete range in mind, up to 250 samples are tasted every day. Trained palates immediately find out which teas are suitable to adequately complement the range or to be used for new creations. To do this, the team must of course first know the consumers' buying habits by constantly observing the local market!

These basic tasks build on the foundation of another important aspect in their field of responsibilities: When generating foreign contacts and negotiating with tea traders, sensitivity is as important as a great wealth of experience. Through perennial training, their daily work and several visits to the countries of origin, they have gained the knowledge and skills to do so. The result: their opinion and advice is highly respected by tea traders and garden managers.