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GMS explains. 
Art of Black Tea Blending in Sri Lanka
The main difference between Ceylon Black Tea and Chinese Green Tea is that Sri Lanka has a range of black tea from different tea gardens in different regions at different altitudes that have different tastes and characteristics which could be used for blending.
For Chinese tea, even for Chinese black tea, red tea, Puer or oolong etc, they don't really do cross regional mixing and blending of tea. In fact, tea producers from different regions in China are very proud of their own tea brands by their regions or localities.
There are some tea traders in Sri Lanka who would try to sell their tea by their tea estate names or regions but eventually they would need to blend their tea with tea from other estates or regions to get a balanced smooth taste.
Tea from different regions and altitudes will have different characteristics. Tea from higher altitude regions will have good aroma and fragrance but light in taste while tea from lowland are stronger in taste but may be coarse or astringent in taste.
Even tea from same region but different estates may have variations in taste as well.
Personally, I do my own mixing and blending while taking my Akbar Tea. I normally mix Akbar Red & White Whole Leaf tea with Gold Tin BOP tea for my brew. It gives me that shiok astringent and strong sweet after taste.
Ceylon Tea estates are coordinated by the Sri Lanka Tea Board to maintain a guaranteed high level of quality in the management of the plantations. The use of chemical fertilizers are tightly regulated while the use of pesticides and insecticides are closely monitored.
The Quality and Taste of the final tea products depends heavily on the experienced and skilfull tea tasters and blenders.
Thus if you compare tea products from different brands of Ceylon Tea, you may find different standards and quality of tea taste due to the mixed experience of tea tasters and blenders.
A novice tea taster would have to go through at least 6 months of basic training and apprenticeship before he could be selected for further training and grooming. It will take years for a novice tea taster apprentice to gain significant experience and knowledge of all the characteristics of different tea types from all different tea estates in Sri Lanka to become a good blender. Master blenders will take decades of experience to reach that height.
The sensitivity of the tea blenders' tongues is the most important factor in producing good quality taste tea with great consistency over time.
Consistency is very important in tea production and it's not easy to maintain it especially when a large factory involved numerous tea tasters and blenders. Thus these experienced tea tasters and blenders have a set of standards recorded for each different types of tea products they produce. The tea tasters have a record of tea tasting journal to identify the type of taste each and every tea product should have.
This is where the Real Value of Ceylon tea lies. The High Quality of Ceylon is backed by the High Standard of supply chain they have built for their tea industry, coordinated, regulated and controlled by Sri Lanka Tea Board.
The production of a Premium Quality Ceylon Tea starts from how the tea estates grow and harvest their tea, the traditional and modern technological tea processing methodology, to the group of highly skilfull and dedicated Professional Tea Tasters and Blenders to produce the finest tea with the best balanced taste for the world.
Goh Meng Seng
2 d ·Art of Black Tea Blending in Sri Lanka
The main difference between Ceylon Black Tea and Chinese Green Tea is that Sri Lanka has a range of black tea from different tea gardens in different regions at different altitudes that have different tastes and characteristics which could be used for blending.
For Chinese tea, even for Chinese black tea, red tea, Puer or oolong etc, they don't really do cross regional mixing and blending of tea. In fact, tea producers from different regions in China are very proud of their own tea brands by their regions or localities.
There are some tea traders in Sri Lanka who would try to sell their tea by their tea estate names or regions but eventually they would need to blend their tea with tea from other estates or regions to get a balanced smooth taste.
Tea from different regions and altitudes will have different characteristics. Tea from higher altitude regions will have good aroma and fragrance but light in taste while tea from lowland are stronger in taste but may be coarse or astringent in taste.
Even tea from same region but different estates may have variations in taste as well.
Personally, I do my own mixing and blending while taking my Akbar Tea. I normally mix Akbar Red & White Whole Leaf tea with Gold Tin BOP tea for my brew. It gives me that shiok astringent and strong sweet after taste.
Ceylon Tea estates are coordinated by the Sri Lanka Tea Board to maintain a guaranteed high level of quality in the management of the plantations. The use of chemical fertilizers are tightly regulated while the use of pesticides and insecticides are closely monitored.
The Quality and Taste of the final tea products depends heavily on the experienced and skilfull tea tasters and blenders.
Thus if you compare tea products from different brands of Ceylon Tea, you may find different standards and quality of tea taste due to the mixed experience of tea tasters and blenders.
A novice tea taster would have to go through at least 6 months of basic training and apprenticeship before he could be selected for further training and grooming. It will take years for a novice tea taster apprentice to gain significant experience and knowledge of all the characteristics of different tea types from all different tea estates in Sri Lanka to become a good blender. Master blenders will take decades of experience to reach that height.
The sensitivity of the tea blenders' tongues is the most important factor in producing good quality taste tea with great consistency over time.
Consistency is very important in tea production and it's not easy to maintain it especially when a large factory involved numerous tea tasters and blenders. Thus these experienced tea tasters and blenders have a set of standards recorded for each different types of tea products they produce. The tea tasters have a record of tea tasting journal to identify the type of taste each and every tea product should have.
This is where the Real Value of Ceylon tea lies. The High Quality of Ceylon is backed by the High Standard of supply chain they have built for their tea industry, coordinated, regulated and controlled by Sri Lanka Tea Board.
The production of a Premium Quality Ceylon Tea starts from how the tea estates grow and harvest their tea, the traditional and modern technological tea processing methodology, to the group of highly skilfull and dedicated Professional Tea Tasters and Blenders to produce the finest tea with the best balanced taste for the world.
