Tea testing

The profession of a tea tester (not to be confused with a taster) requires talent, knowledge and experience. It is necessary to be able to keep in memory a whole collection of tea smells, to know their origin, pedigree, history, and characteristics.

The tester has no right to use perfumes or other aromatic substances. Tobacco, alcohol and products with strong odors (for example, garlic) are also excluded.

Tea testing involves determining the quality of tea leaves at all stages of its production. In dry, ready-made tea, these are appearance and tactile indicators (to the touch) - fragility, density, presence of tips, aroma. Next, the tea is examined in infusion.

When a tea infusion is tested, it is not drunk, but only rinses the mouth. To determine the aroma, a cup is rinsed with the infusion, and the tea tester sniffs the now empty cup, as well as cut, non-hot tea leaves.

The entire sum of the information obtained in this way with ratings for each position (25–30 in total) and their generalization constitutes a verdict on the quality of a particular type of tea.

To find interesting professions that will be hired without a diploma, we scoured job search sites. Some vacancies where you can work without special education turned out to be so cool that you can send your resume right now.

Working for food

The first group of professions for which certificates are not needed are associated exclusively with natural talent. To become a taster, you need sensitive receptors and a love of food. The most attractive jobs are related to sweets and what to wash it down with.

Cake taster

The confectionery factory of Christoph Laermans was looking for a person who could eat 2.5 kg of sweets a day. For employment, a medical record and the absence of allergies were required, and the company provided a salary, a discount on factory products and paid for a gym membership.

Tea tester

A tea taster is a person who tastes tea. Such employees are needed when a company is going to purchase a batch of goods: they determine how high-quality tea suppliers offer. And for this you have to travel to India, Africa, China and in general to all tea-producing countries.

The tester also drinks tea after purchasing: he checks whether the taste has changed after transportation and packaging at the factory.

When we were given this vacancy to select a candidate, the requirements were as follows: first, to love tea, second, to have a certain physiological sensitivity, the ability to determine astringency and aroma. It should be noted that the salaries are high: this profession is rare.

Natalia Storozheva, General Director of the recruitment agency Perspektiva

There is no training for a profession anywhere in Russia, so the company itself recruits people and sends them to study abroad. Then all you need is experience and more experience.

Work for travel

Not everyone can be a taster if the tea from a bag tastes no different from rare loose leaf tea. To become a traveler, you need much less natural talent, if you have the desire.

Tourism manager

A fairly common vacancy for which special education is not required. It is precisely this kind of “dirty” work in tourism that will become a replacement for any university.

A plus of the job is the opportunity to go on special study tours, which are usually held out of season. The downside is the low starting salary, but there is an opportunity to develop and become an expert in areas.

Olga Evstratova, commercial director of the Caribbean Club company

The manager communicates with clients, studies offers from hotels and guides in different countries and makes sure that clients’ expectations coincide with the capabilities of the host.

Recreation Director

This is apparently the highest stage of development for a tourism manager. The One to Trip company offers everyone over 18 years of age with a foreign passport and passable English to perform crazy tasks. Then you must report on the trip, not to your superiors, but to the whole world: tell the details and give advice to the company’s subscribers.

Professional traveler

A vacancy similar to a recreation director: a person with knowledge of English, a foreign passport, active and sociable is required.

The traveler needed to deliver hornbeams (orders from our users), communicate with customers and conduct interviews with them, write a blog about profitable purchases abroad, tips and experiences of our users, create content for our social networks and help other travelers.

Daria Rebenok, founder of Grabr

An additional point in the job requirements is love for. We need a person for whom “Black Friday” is not the name of a horror movie, but the event of the year.

Work for interest

Making money from a hobby is not only about making soap and baking custom cakes. There are also unexpected options.

Car navigator

Roman Gerasimov, co-driver of the FONBET Trophy-Team, author and presenter of the “Motorsport in Faces” project, spoke about this profession.

To become a navigator, you must first get to the nearest competition as anyone: a spectator to understand whether you like this type of motorsport, an assistant judge to find out how the race is organized from the inside, a pilot if you have your own car. The main thing is to understand that you are ready to endure all this.

Roman Gerasimov

In trophy raids, the navigator is the “eyes” of the crew; he is the one who knows where to go, and also monitors the time, instruments and works with sports documents. Additionally, if the car gets stuck, the co-driver works with an electric winch, jack and shovel to free the car.

At the initial stage, you need to study navigation devices, competition rules, terms and tools. It is important to work on your physical fitness because moving through the swamps is difficult.

Payment for a navigator’s work at the initial stage may be small; it depends on the experience and reputation of each specific specialist. Outstanding representatives may be noticed by major sports teams and hired permanently. The navigator's workload is sporadic, usually on weekends, when trophy raids are more common. That is, you can combine it with other work.

Profession without name

This is a job for those whose hobby is idleness.

Alexander Malafeev, HR director of the Urgent Money company, says: “A couple of months ago, one of my friends on Facebook published a vacancy as part of his sociological project. He could not come up with a name for this vacancy, because the main functional responsibility of this position was that you need to sit at an empty office desk all day and do nothing. It was necessary to understand how long an ordinary average citizen would endure such torture for money, as well as what his motivation was. I’ll say right away that there were enough responses.”

Party King

In April 2016, the JoyME mobile application was looking for a candidate for the position of "Party King". Responsibilities: know everything about entertainment, fashion shows, crossfit, races and parties in Moscow. The king of parties had to attend all these events (although this is not always easy), make contacts and attract app users, and at the same time look for partners for further business development. Education did not matter, but the ability to pass any face control was needed.

Work that helps

There is such a profession - helping people. For example, look after the dog while the owners are away, walk it if the owners are busy, comb it, and even teach the dog to talk. The YouDo.com service helped with the selection of such professions, where they often look for unusual helpers:

• A person who makes friends between a cat and a dog.
• A responsible man who will remind you three times a day that it’s time to take your medications.
• A cheerful girl who will play the role of a significant other in front of relatives at a family evening.
• A music lover who can create an original playlist with comments.
• A diligent person who completes a big puzzle.

And this is not counting the standard requests to take a turn or help with cleaning. You are unlikely to make a career in this field, but if you like helping people, then why not make money from it.

HR is the opposite

Recruitment specialists learn right away “in the field”, where they have to evaluate people. Typically, an HR manager works with applicants. But sometimes the “wrong” HR is required.

Elena Sentsova, HR manager at STS Group, says: “STS Group specializes in outsourcing and leasing of personnel, as well as outstaffing. Shift work is common at our facilities. The shift lasts 45, 60 days or more - at the person’s choice. Then the employment agreement with him is closed.

This is done by employees of an unusual profession - managers for working with dismissed people. The manager for working with the dismissed is a secretary in reverse. He sees off shift workers on vacation and makes the process as comfortable as possible. Later he calls people and offers to continue cooperation. This kind of care bears fruit: more than half of the specialists return.”

You can work as a manager for laid-off workers without education. The main requirements for such specialists are a positive outlook on life, sociability, and the ability to establish contact with people of even the most complex character.

We found all of the listed professions in less than a week. And these are not all the cool positions that don’t require a diploma. Tell us in the comments what vacancies for “ignoramuses” you have seen.

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Today we’ll talk about such an interesting profession as a tea taster. In another way it is also called titester. This is a very interesting and unusual job that pays well. Who is a tester? Translated from English this translates as trying, testing tea. A person must determine the type of tea and its quality, combine a mixture of different types. A professional taster is able to identify over one thousand tastes and aromas.

Not everyone can be hired as a tester; the person must have excellent taste and a good sense of smell. He is prohibited from using toilet water, smoking, or drinking alcohol. It is also not allowed to eat spicy food.

An experienced taster can easily determine the type of tea, the place where the plantations grow, and even the period of collecting leaves, the method of processing and storage. The work of a tea tester is reminiscent of the work of a chef or perfumer. His main talent is his delicate taste.

The olfactory organs of good tasters often insure tea companies for millions. After all, they determine the fate of a large amount of tea so that the manufacturer does not lose the money invested. A tea tester is not an easy profession, he does not drink tea, but only holds it in his mouth, then inhales the aroma of the cup in which the infusion or tea leaves were. Tea tasting is not the main part of the job, he also does other things before giving his decision. Examines dry tea for color, leaf shape and appearance. After which it determines the color of the infusion, strength and aroma. Based on the results of the taster's test, factories sort different teas. One product can include up to eighteen teas, which in the mixture will express the main aroma and taste. Next, such a product is sent for sale.

In addition to working in tea companies, tea tester work is popular at auctions. The taster, by mutual agreement of his company, can give advice to an individual client. Mostly, people ask about how to brew the drink and about tea ceremonies. For one consultation, a titester receives about five hundred dollars and pays a percentage of this amount to his company.

They train tasters in tea companies. You can also learn this business at a specialized university, where you do internships for several years on tea plantations. They become experienced tasters only after ten years. The advantages of this work are that it is interesting and highly paid. On average, a person receives about two thousand dollars at a factory, and up to seven thousand at auctions. The downside is that there are many restrictions on food, drinks and other pleasures.

A sommelier is compared to the profession of a wine tester, which is what the job of a wine seller is called in France. He tastes alcoholic drinks, has a professional understanding of them, and knows how to drink them correctly. A sommelier knows everything about wine: how to open it, serve it correctly, what dishes are best paired with it. In Western countries, such people bring up to forty percent of a restaurant’s profit. In Russia, this profession has not yet gained popularity, but sommeliers are already working in large cities and in elite establishments.

A tea taster can conduct up to three hundred samples during one working day. The decision of the tea tester determines which tea or mixture the company will choose to sell. Therefore, his work is very difficult, but highly paid.

Every tea lover has a preference for one that he likes best. Each product contains many varieties, and each of them grows in a different country and depends on weather conditions. Combining teas and creating new tastes and aromas is the job of a taster.

Chapter:
TEA AND TEA CEREMONY
6th page of the section

William Vasilyevich POKHLEBKIN about tea
"TEA, ITS TYPES, PROPERTIES, CONSUMPTION"

Chapter 10
Tea testing

The method of determining the quality of tea according to all its numerous indicators developed gradually, historically, as human knowledge about tea expanded. For a long time, the main and almost the only way to determine the quality of tea was the organoleptic method, i.e. testing tea samples by a person by touch, eye and taste.

This method, which is extremely subjective in its essence, gave birth to a special profession - tea testers, people who actually devoted their lives to determining the qualities of tea and for the sake of this were forced to accept a whole series of restrictions and strict discipline in their entire not only official, but also everyday life.

Only in this way does the definition of a seemingly subjective concept like taste rise to a high objective level, and so precise and subtle that no instruments can replace or reproduce this human assessment.

Of course, in order to be a tester, you need a natural talent, and not only rare, like, say, singers or artists, but extremely rare, since there are very few people with an ideal sense of smell and an accurate sense of taste, and people who have retained these rare natural qualities from birth to adulthood, when the question of choosing a profession is decided, and even less. There are literally only a few of them in each country.

This is partly because natural talents in this area disappear more often than in any other, since in childhood and even in adulthood relatively few people know about the profession of a tester and even fewer people imagine what kind of profession it is and what qualities you need to have to be a tester.

Often, even in the press, tea testers are called tea tasters. This is absolutely false. Tasting refers only to the sampling of food and drinks, including alcoholic drinks, primarily various wines, and involves testing a ready-made food product in order to determine its taste characteristics and differences from products of this category. In this case, the taster is obliged to eat at least a small part of this food product (except for alcoholic beverages).

Tea testing is a much more complex and varied process than tasting. It includes determining the quality of the tea leaf at all stages of its production, testing the finished dry tea by touch, by sight, according to a variety of indicators (fragility, density, quality of cleaning, presence of tips, color), determining the aroma of dry tea, and finally , testing the tea infusion according to indicators such as aroma, taste, color, brightness, strength, transparency, color, intensity of the infusion, degree of extraction.

In addition, the tea tester must conduct the same tests on the boiled tea leaves. Only the entire sum of information obtained in this way with ratings for each control position (25-30 in total) and their generalization make it possible for the tea tester to make his verdict on the quality of a particular type of tea. That is why the tester’s opinion is considered “objective”, despite the fact that it is a purely personal opinion, and backed by indisputable authority. It is practically never colored by any subjective aspects. This is the opinion of a strict professional - a specialist of the highest category.

The profession of a titester requires not only talent, but also great knowledge and experience. It is associated with great material and public responsibility, with a thorough knowledge of not only such disciplines as biology, botany, biochemistry, geography, physics, but also the economics of the world market, and especially the economics of the tea trade.

The profession of a tea tester requires the ability to keep in memory a whole collection of tea odors and know their origin, pedigree and history. A good tea tester knows the characteristics of all or most tea plantations in the major tea-producing countries.

Finally, the profession of a tit tester requires enormous self-discipline, accuracy, precision and endurance, as well as the ability to withstand physical stress. Sometimes international class tea testers have to produce up to 1000 tea samples a week and not just “take 1000 sips”, but carry out numerous operations related to testing and give their decisive conclusion on them.

It is not surprising that the profession of a tester, although extremely honorable, is included in the category of difficult professions on a par with the professions of a miner and metallurgist. Naturally, therefore, the work of titesters is extremely highly paid. The health of tit testers (or rather, their nasopharynx) is insured by some English companies for 1 million pounds sterling. A runny nose in a tea tester is an event that can cause huge losses to a tea company.

The profession of a tester requires many sacrifices from a person. Naturally, he should not smoke, drink alcoholic beverages, and must refrain from eating any food that has any pronounced aroma of its own. Therefore, testers never eat onions, garlic, pickles and smoked meats, consume very little salt, and limit themselves to the consumption of even spicy herbs and sweets. Their destiny is neutral dairy-vegetable foods, poultry, boiled river fish, young meat, and some egg and flour products.

The tester has no right to use perfume, cologne, i.e. odorous substances, flavored toothpaste, scented toilet soap. He must wash his hands only with tea soap. Moreover, his linen, clothes, shoes should not be exposed to the latest synthetic detergents, so that no foreign odors could influence his assessment of tea.

It goes without saying that a tit tester protects himself from colds. His work space is a clean, large, always sunny room - ventilated all the time. In his communication with other people and the world around him, the tester must constantly proceed from all of the above rules. This means, for example, that he should not have friends who smoke, wear perfume, etc.

When testing a tea infusion, the tea tester does not drink the tea, but only rinses the mouth with it, then trying to determine the taste by rubbing droplets of tea with the tongue on the palate. In the same way, when determining the aroma, he does not stick his nose into a cup of hot tea, but sniffs an empty cup that has been rinsed with tea, or carefully sniffs boiled, but not hot, tea leaves from which the tea has been drained. In other words, in all cases, the tea tester spares his olfactory apparatus, which is capable of giving him comprehensive information about the aroma of tea based on signs that are barely noticeable to the average consumer.

The uniqueness of the tea tester profession, and even more so, the rarity of the appearance and long-term preservation of the qualities of a good tea tester, increasingly force the tea industry and the science that serves it to look for the possibility of laboratory, objective methods for determining the quality of tea.

Today, biochemical, chemical, gas analyses, luminescent assessment, chromatography and theaflavin scale are already used to determine some indicators of tea quality, mainly at certain stages of its production, when it is necessary to adjust the mode of a particular technological operation and it is important to determine some one quality that is important for this operation.

However, all these methods of objective assessment cannot yet give any clear idea of ​​the taste and aroma of tea and the totality of its quality indicators. Therefore, it is not yet possible to base a general assessment of the merits of tea on them, which is decisive for establishing the cost of tea. This important task is still entrusted to a person - a specialist titester, whose live, immediate impression, paradoxically, turns out to be more objective and accurate than test results.

In this sense, the organoleptic method seems to be indispensable, and, despite the development of technology, it is likely to remain important as long as people drink tea.

Not only wine, but also tea have their own sommeliers. The tea tester determines the quality and type of tea, tastes the drink and decides whether a particular taste will be a commercial success in the market.

Inventor and explorer

The word has English roots: “tea” - tea and “test” - to test, try. A tester is a person with developed taste sensations.

In Russia, tea sommelier is a rare profession. Most of them are in India, China, Japan - where dozens of tea corporations are located, and the process of tea drinking itself is considered an obligatory ritual. But even there there are no more than a hundred professionals.

At work, a tea tester takes samples every day from dozens, hundreds of varieties of tea. In addition, the tea sommelier is obliged to:

1. Develop new tea blends (mixes).

2. Control the quality of raw materials.

3. Participate in tea flavoring technology.

A tea sommelier does not taste the drink in the generally accepted sense - he drinks it.

Nikolai Gaev, a professional tea taster with 3 years of experience, says: “The research takes place in a spacious and bright room. First, the tea tester evaluates the dry tea leaves. Tests the density, color and smell of leaves by touch, determines the method of processing and storage. After this, according to the rules, the infusion is brewed 2-3 times: the tester rinses his mouth with it. The taste buds located on the tongue and palate determine the variety, quality of tea, and its effect on the human body. Finally, the brewed leaves are examined. At each stage of testing, the tester makes an expert opinion.”

Distinctive features of the profession

The job comes with a lot of commercial responsibility. Based on the tea tester’s research, a decision is made to launch a tea variety on the market. A tea sommelier understands botany, biochemistry, historical and geographical features of the famous tea plantations of the world.

There are certain restrictions in the profession. The tester is prohibited from smoking, drinking alcohol, or even being around people who smoke or drink; use perfume and personal hygiene products with a strong odor; eat hot, spicy, smoked foods. Any herbs, sauces, seasonings, fatty meats and fish, sweets are strictly prohibited.

Alexander Ivanov, tea tester at Tea Company CJSC, shares his impressions: “It depends on the tea tester’s opinion whether the release of a particular type of tea will be financially beneficial or not. A mistake will lead to millions in losses. Therefore, companies often insure the smell and taste of their tea sommeliers, even against a common runny nose.”

Technical progress has made it possible to create dozens of devices that determine the quality of tea leaves, but the professional opinion of a living person, as many years ago, remains a priority.

Where to study and work

The Georgian Institute of Subtropical Economy provides knowledge about technologies for the production and storage of tea leaves. Duration of training - 5 years. The cost ranges from 30 to 60,000 rubles. per year of study.

You can improve your skills at the Moscow advanced training courses for titesters.

Another point is practice. It takes 5–6 years. The best work is considered to be on Indian plantations. Here they teach you to focus only on studying the tea leaves, to abstract from external stimuli.

Famous tea houses personally “grow” tea testers. Tea is imported to Russia, and you can get an internship in corporations that sell raw materials: “May”, “Moscow Tea Factory”, “Imperial Tea”.

The tea tester's place of work can be tea corporations, auction houses, and companies selling tea.

Earnings and prospects

A tea tester earns $1500–2000 at a tea factory. In auction houses, the salary of a tea sommelier reaches $7000–7500.

The titester, with the consent of the employing company, consults private clients. People are interested in how to brew the drink correctly and the rules of the tea ceremony. Payment for one consultation is $400–500. The employing company receives a fixed percentage of this amount.

An obvious advantage of the profession is high wages. A good tester is a rarity, so competition here is minimal.

Roman Titov works as a tea tester in a Chinese tea manufacturing company: “At work, discovering a new taste, I feel like a magician, a demigod. This profession is difficult, but creating a new collection of tea leaves is an incomparable feeling. Long hours of constant research and tasting result in a drink that is enjoyed by millions of people.”

But there are also disadvantages. Firstly, you cannot do without a good sense of smell and taste, given by nature. It is not enough to learn the theory and constantly develop taste and smell. If you don't have innate talent, you can't become a good tester. Secondly, there are many official prohibitions that have to be extended to private life.

“A tester is not necessarily a generalist,” says Roman Titov. - During the course of study, all types of tea are studied, but depending on further employment, the tea sommelier becomes a professional with a narrow specialization. In Kenya they like granulated tea, in India - chopped tea. In China, they pay attention to the opening of the tea leaves; without aesthetic value, the drink is nothing. I know a lot about yellow teas, but I don’t know much about the production of pu-erh.”

To summarize, we note that the tea tester does not “chase teas”, but studies the plant. He tests dry and brewed leaves and draws conclusions: to release the product or not.