The Value of Tea Education Programs

By Carrie Pallardy

Industry knowledge of tea lags behind coffee in many ways. Coffee bean selection and roasting are well documented and highly discussed among industry professionals. But the waters grow murkier with tea. Where was a variety of tea grown, and how? How should it be prepared? What makes one blend of higher quality than another? Investing in tea education for business owners and tea professionals creates a stronger industry. As growers, brewers, and café teams learn more, they can develop tea programs that go a long way toward demystifying tea for the industry and its customers.

Online learning

If a business decides to incorporate a tea program, where is the best place to start? While there are a number of in-person training options, this might not always be the most accessible option. The World Tea Academy offers a comprehensive online curriculum, including six core classes and multiple advanced course options.

The core classes cover the different types of teas, how they are processed, traditional countries of origin, and the basics of botanicals. The academy’s advanced courses, many of which are written by tea industry professionals, delve deeper into the world of tea with options to explore the biochemistry of tea processing and the organoleptic experience. Students can earn certifications including tea professional, tea sommelier, tea health expert, tea blender, and tea aroma expert.

While some enthusiastic consumers take the courses, most students tend to come from the B2B sphere. Many large companies have their employees take World Tea Academy courses, according to director Lisa Boalt Richardson. “There are so many misconceptions about tea. If you are going to be in the tea business, you really need to know your product,” she says.

The World Tea Academy courses include both online and cupping assignments. Each course can be completed at the individual student’s own pace, allowing for flexibility. Business owners and full-time employees can do their coursework and move toward certification when they have time in their schedule.

The online learning environment also attracts an ever-changing mix of participants. “We have had students from 55 different countries take our classes, says Boalt Richardson. “I would say about a fourth to a fifth of our students are international. It really makes the dynamic of the class quite different.”

Richardson strongly believes in the importance of tea education for all professionals, whether new to the business or already a part of the industry. “It behooves anyone in the tea industry to become much more educated because the customer is becoming much savvier,” she says.

Looking to coffee as a model

Royal New York has been a coffee importer for about 25 years, adding tea importing and custom blends about five years ago, according to Zoey Thorson, director of The Lab at Royal New York. The company’s educational arm, The Lab, began as a way to support its client base and attract more customers. Now, it combines coffee and tea education in its courses, as many retailers offer both.

At The Lab, students, both home enthusiasts and industry professionals, can learn the basics of tea and coffee extraction and how tea reacts to variables like water temperature. For those with a professional passion for tea, The Lab hosts business-focused classes on topics like establishing a tea program, marketing, and consumer education.

Though coffee education can be analogous to tea in many ways, tea is more complex in some ways. “One of the challenges we find in tea is that it is so different from coffee,” says Thorson. She adds, “Every tea, every origin, every aspect of tea is individual to that specific thing. You can’t even compare one oolong to the next oolong because they can be drastically different in leaf grade, in the way it is prepared, or the oxidation method, etc. So, each tea is its own land. Unlike coffee, it is very hard to have black and white viewpoints on them.”

With the complexities of tea in mind, Thorson wants education to pave the path to more transparency in the world of tea. “There hasn’t been as much focus on quality standards of tea or just greater knowledge of where the tea is coming from and the journey it takes to get here,” she says. “One of my personal goals in our program, as well as through our blog, is to create that connection and have some transparency between the producers of the tea and the consumer.” With a clear common language, retailers, producers, and consumers can better establish and understand quality standards for tea.

Tea education for consumers

While education is essential to building a retail tea program, it is hard to build a customer base without educated consumers. “If you want to have a market where people are buying high-quality specialty teas, you have to have that education,” says Angela McDonald, owner of Oregon Tea Traders and president of the US League of Tea Growers. “If you only put out or produce the teas and expect the public to buy them, there is no way you can compete with all of the top brands on a grocery store shelf.” That education helps consumers understand the value-added price of a specialty tea: the quality, how many cups of tea you can get from just a small amount, and the different flavor profiles. (See our Q&A with McDonald on p. 14)

McDonald purchased a small tea company with 12 original varieties, and now, Oregon Tea Traders has more than 70 different varieties and wholesale operations. As she has grown her business, she has gotten involved in educating people outside the industry. “I’ve been teaching a lot of classes about tea to get people more involved in the process of making it, the history behind it,” she says. McDonald has taught classes at local community colleges and tea festivals.

Developing industry resources

The U.S. League of Tea Growers. Is dedicated to serving as a resource for tea growers across the country, whether hobby farmers with just a couple of plants or large commercial operations with acres. The more growers learn from one another, the more the industry can succeed. McDonald envisions the league providing not only national but also regional support. She is also working to connect researchers interested in growing tea.

As the domestic tea growing industry evolves, McDonald hopes to see it become more like the terroir-specific wine and coffee businesses. The unique flavor profiles of a black tea from China or India will never grow here; different terroirs mean different flavors. “Instead of trying to replicate Chinese and Indian teas, we need to try to create our own flavor profiles,” says McDonald. (See our Q&A with McDonald.)

There is value in tea education — a knowledgeable and connected industry with informed consumers can help the market for tea mature and grow.