Inside Beverages – the tea sommelier

12 November 2010 by
Inside Beverages – the tea sommelier

The demand for higher standards, particularly in tea, has raised the bar for the training of beverage staff, writes Ian Boughton, while one supplier suggests that it is time for top tea-serving staff to be recognised with their own awards scheme

There are changing schools of thought about the way hospitality staff should be trained in hot beverages. In coffee, as the entry lists for the most recent national barista championships showed, several serious contract catering companies have now increased their investment in in-house "coffee academies". While in the tea sector, the role of "tea sommelier" has been known for 10 years, and is now becoming a recognised position.

This new thinking is no longer about "training" in the obvious sense of the word - it is now about super-training, to achieve a particularly high level of expertise. Those who achieve it are now being rewarded with management-level positions.

The difference is neatly summed up by United Coffee, which has just hired the last UK world barista champion, Gwilym Davies, as its "ambassador". "A true barista is a highly skilled scientist and craftsman," says managing director Elaine Higginson. "This is not about the ‘wow-factor' tricks of the trade such as latte art - this is about really understanding the science behind the beverage, where it came from, how it's grown, how growing conditions affect the flavour, how to store it and how to extract the very best flavour."

It is a radical shift, and one of the embarrassing situations it will remove is the unfortunate fact that many senior catering staff are still woefully ignorant about hot beverages. This is a major reason why speciality coffee has soared to new heights on the high street and speciality tea is brewed to perfection in specialist tea-lounges, but both remain below par in the average hotel and restaurant.

Lisa Huntington, head barista trainer at Cooper's Coffee, puts her finger on the problem when she says: "A lot of front-of-house staff delegate beverage-making to someone else because they've never been trained correctly - it's easier to tell someone else to do it. It is a better idea to nominate one or two staff members to have ‘ownership' of beverages, someone who cares about the coffee and tea, and wants to ensure that every drink that gets sent out is a good one."

This is not as idealist as it sounds. Several organisations are now putting the idea of "ownership" of beverages into practice.


TEAMASTER PROGRAMME

The Frankfurt tea house Ronnefeldt, which supplies European hotels, has had its Teamaster programme for seven years and has awarded 200 qualifications around the world - winning the badge requires study of tea cultivation, tasting and presentation, and the final stage is an assessment on a tea garden in Sri Lanka.

The Teamasters then pass their tea expertise on to guests and colleagues, stage afternoon teas, conduct seminars and advise their hotel or restaurant on the choice of teas. This, says Ronnefeldt's managing director Frank Holzapfel, gives "an entirely new impulse" to food and beverage departments in understanding how to develop their profits from tea.

Unilever Foodsolutions, under its PG Tips and Lipton brands, has now run its first high-standard course for food and beverage managers and chefs, focusing on the concept of afternoon tea. Tea taster Nick Bunston and Graham Hornigold, head pastry chef at the Mandarin Oriental, took a full-day course ranging from tea blending to the pairing of "taste experiences" between teas and foods, and the most profitable choice of accompaniments.

It is the modern coffee brands who have driven this specialisation, says Richard Barclay, SSP's senior vice-president. If the coffee houses have pushed up consumers' expectations, no food and beverage manager in any hospitality sector can ignore the consequence - the beverage "expert" has to be in place.

"Training very highly skilled staff is becoming more important, so we have created a barista network to ‘cascade' training across our business. We have now trained 50 head baristas across 20 countries, who were selected for intensive training in Bologna, Italy. They now take responsibility for training our senior baristas in each country, who are in turn responsible for training our baristas."


AUDIT SYSTEM

Kenco has adopted the "audit" system, which involves a team going onsite to check every possible item of beverage service. If results are not good enough, an improvement action plan is put into place.

"Some big companies have now created league tables of the audit performance of their sites," remarks Marco Olmi, director of Drury Tea and Coffee. "We know one chain where any site scoring less than 85% has to explain why in a video-conference with senior management… it tends to concentrate their attention!"

If coffee has led the way in giving status to individual drinks-makers, says Newby Tea's marketing director, Edward Berry, it is time to expect a serious tea industry response to the rise of the coffee barista.

"In the world of coffee the barista has established himself as an accomplished, dynamic, at times ‘groovy' operator. There is still no name for a tea service equivalent - even the name sommelier is borrowed from wine.

"To justify the investment, the hotel or restaurant has to anticipate some added value, either an improvement in revenue, or at least in image. The issue is to give inexperienced staff sufficient knowledge to provide appropriate suggestions and words to back this up, and to this end there are limits.

"Hence the need for the tea ‘champion'. This has to be someone with the ability to encourage experimentation http://www.unitedcoffeeuk.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">by the customer] through the right language. Having seen the long-term development of the wine sommelier with global awards, and coffee's barista championships, now is the ideal time for a celebration of tea expertise with a challenging competition for Best Tea Person!"

The first Tea Sommelier in the UK is generally held to be Karl Kessab (pictured above right) of the Lanesborough hotel, winner of several "top afternoon tea" awards. One of the main differences between his role and that of a conventional tea-lounge manager is his responsibility for sourcing produce. In general, the food and beverage manager faces all kinds of hazards from company policies to budget restraints, but the tea sommelier has a stated responsibility for going out and finding the best teas for his venue. Karl also works with tea brokers and suppliers, attends tea workshops and studies tea for himself. This is, clearly, a management role.

It is no longer a novelty. More hotels have appreciated why the role of afternoon tea is increasing, and why it has to be managed at senior level. "Afternoon tea is increasing year-on-year," explains Karl Kessab. "It is now very difficult to get a table anywhere on a Saturday or Sunday, and by 4.30pm on a weekday, many businessmen have said ‘let's go for a nice cup of tea', and so a lot of deals are done here in the afternoon."

Although afternoon tea is always portrayed as a relaxing event, Karl Kessab and his team of 30 are not relaxed. They are fiercely competitive and their attitude to tea service is on a par with the way food is treated in any big-name kitchen.

"We cannot settle for second-best - even name-recognition is a critical standard, so behind the scenes our people are checking on who's sitting where and 98% of the time our waiters get the guest's name right. We also regularly send our people to take tea elsewhere at other hotel lounges, to watch and to experience - what are they doing, what do they charge, what's the service like?"

The result is positive. The tea sommelier is regarded by customers as an expert and their attitude to his venue changes accordingly. "A lot of our guests now go through the tea menu like they would a wine list. It is very common to go to a table expecting a simple order and to be asked: ‘right, tell me about these teas'."

CONTACTS

Cooper's 0800 298 2802

[Kenco ](http://www.kencocoffeecompany.co.uk/)0870 600 6556

[Lanesborough ](http://www.lanesborough.com/)020 7259 5599

[Newby ](http://www.newbyteas.com/)020 7251 8939

[Ronnefeldt ](http://www.cupoftea.uk.com/)01761 239162

[SSP](http://www.ritazza.sspweblive.com) 01932 792400

[Unilever ](http://www.unileverfoodsolutions.co.uk/)0800 783 3728

[United Coffee01908 275520

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking