Can I make a living as a tea sommelier ?

Dude, you can't get a good drunk from tea unless you add some bud or shrooms to it. Move to CO and start pairing tea with bud and you'll make a mint.

How do you feel about tea bags?

Maybe China or the UK will appreciate you. I don't need some guy in a fancy suit tell me which tea is best to dump into the harbor where it belongs.

You sound like you are having sex with a cup of tea in your post. Are you?It's niche, but I'm sure there's a market somewhere. New York, San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Portland maybe?

oolong wrote:

I can't tell the difference between a pinot noir and a merlot, but I'm adept at pairing tea with food. I live and breathe tea. Serving warm oolong alongside a buttery, crisp madeleine emphasizes the flowery and milky notes of this tea. A cup of hot green tea melds perfectly well with goat cheese and highlights its creamy notes. I know the aromas of teas- spicy, earthy and floral- and can instinctively pair them with various foods in order to reveal the delicate layers of taste and flavor in both. It's an unusual craft, but one which many of my friends benefit from. They tell me I have a gift that should be shared, but I'm not sure whether there's much of a market for someone like myself in the restaurant world.

My relationship with tea is definitely sensual, like most artistic crafts. I can relate to tea on a deeper level much like a potter relates to his medium, clay.

I agree with this being a niche venture. I would need to align myself with an eatery, because cooking and preparing the food would be a distraction.

oolong wrote:

I can't tell the difference between a pinot noir and a merlot, but I'm adept at pairing tea with food. I live and breathe tea. Serving warm oolong alongside a buttery, crisp madeleine emphasizes the flowery and milky notes of this tea. A cup of hot green tea melds perfectly well with goat cheese and highlights its creamy notes. I know the aromas of teas- spicy, earthy and floral- and can instinctively pair them with various foods in order to reveal the delicate layers of taste and flavor in both. It's an unusual craft, but one which many of my friends benefit from. They tell me I have a gift that should be shared, but I'm not sure whether there's much of a market for someone like myself in the restaurant world.

moran

You should send your love letter to tea to Rishi and ask for a job. I'm serious.

Did you ever play poke a Pecker?

Echion wrote:

You should send your love letter to tea to Rishi and ask for a job. I'm serious.

Good idea. Do you think I have a shot to convince them to fund my venture? I probably wouldn't want to use their blended teas, as I prefer to use pure leaves unadulterated by secondary flavors and oils.

Hey oolong, I've got a question for you. A female friend of mine (a romantic prospect if I play my teas right) is really into tea. I'd like to get her a eclectic combination of high quality teas for her upcoming birthday. What's the difference between white, green and black tea? Suggestions on tea types, brands etc?

TIA

I don't know if this is serious, but go for it. if it is a troll, I LOLed

Yeah, probably. But, it needs to be in Aspen or Park City or Beverly Hills or someplace like that. Standalone would not be easy. Maybe sell it like they have wine maker nights at restaurants.

You need to put up some money for sure and will probably lose money before you make any trying to figure out what works.

A cup of hot green tea melds perfectly well with goat cheese and highlights its creamy notes.

Err, no.

This is just wrong.

You should try to get your money back from the gastronomy school you attended.

Kinda curious--from which Ivy League school do you guys think "oolong" will claim he/she/it earned his/her awesome Humanities degree? Harvard and Yale seem too easy and this joker will probably consider them too banal for trolling. I'm going to go with Dartmouth--Go Big Green!!!

Sorry, but I think this peaked in 2015. NPR is always behind the social craze curve.

If you are actually serious, you should follow Jen Petersen's advice and start a tea sommelier journal (that's her book's name) to be able to show prospective clients (restaurants are not the only angle, there are also boutique opportunities in tasting parties, etc.)

Yeah, these days I think you have to have a degree to get hired, and probably many states/provinces will require an industry certification even if you want to go self-employed.

The OP wanted to leverage the opinions of friends into a career, but that's not the way the real world typically works.

Here's the contact info:

"Gabriella Lombardi" wrote:

Sorry, but I think this peaked in 2015. NPR is always behind the social craze curve.

Good work on figuring out where OP plagiarized the text from. About what to expect from humanities majors. Plus bonus points for using one of the insider names as a handle.

No joke, but my uncle used to be one. He had his own tea shop or something like that (I never saw it) in Taiwan a long time ago, though he has lived in the US since the late '80s or '90s. I don't have any input on whether you could make a living doing it now in the US other than I don't know of people. I like a good pu'er tea myself.

Steal the name of a cafe here in my home town 'The Cupping Room'. Focus on tea but still sell coffee. Make a mint from hipsters.