TWINING EXPERTEAS

Tasting tea is a dream job for any tea-lover but it takes years of training (and thousands of tastings) to become a true master blender and tea aficionado.

Once the tea leaves have been processed, they're ready to be sold. Buying tea either happens at an auction or privately, directly between a producer and an expert tea buyer.

Every week, major tea auctions take place in Calcutta, Mombasa, Colombo and Jakarta. Before each one, brokers send tea samples to expert tea buyers around the world, including our own, to be tasted and graded; valuations are then given to the ones they're interested in.

Bids are then made at the auction and the purchased tea is shipped out to the successful bidder. It takes about 3 weeks for tea to arrive in the UK from Sri Lanka, while tea coming from India or China can take up to 5 weeks.

At Twinings, we think it's important to know where our tea has come from and who's grown it. That's why our tea experts buy a lot of it directly; this also helps us make sure we're blending the best-tasting teas possible. Having been in the business for so long, we've developed longstanding relationships with growers and tea estates. Sometimes they even grow teas just for us!

And once our tea arrives in the UK, our blenders taste every sample again to make sure that nothing has affected the flavour during the long journey.

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