The Art of Tea Blending
Where Nuance Meets Inspiration
By Bill Waddington
Photographs by Ariane Dixon, Courtesy of Tazo

Where do you get your ideas?" This nebulous question is often asked of anyone who makes a habit of creative endeavors. I often get this question regarding the creation of TeaSource's custom tea blends. And so when I was asked to do an article on tea blending, it seemed the perfect opportunity to answer this question, difficult as it may seem. I certainly don't consider myself the tea-blending expert. There is no tea-blending expert because of blending's subjective nature. But over the years I have devised a number of blends that our customers at TeaSource have come to enjoy, speaking a little to expertise. Yet in writing this article it seemed wisest to bring in the experience of some other renowned tea blenders to shed light on this tenebrous topic.

   After talking to a number of tea blenders I concluded there are as many approaches to tea blending as there are blenders themselves. It is truly an art form. Because blending is an unrestrictive creative process, any personality can be a good tea blender: You can be an uninhibited, right-brained, innovative type, or you can be a very logical, methodical, even conservative type. And for tea-industry newbies, I encourage creating your own blends. In the words of Augie Techeira of the venerable Freed, Teller & Freed, "It's not rocket science."

   I think Augie was right. But I also think there are a few basic guidelines to follow when creating tea blends.

Basic Guidelines of Tea Blending
1. Become fluent in the nuances that possible ingredients can bring to a blend. This includes different types of tea-Darjeeling, sencha, Formosa choicest oolong, etc.-as well as non-tea ingredients. If you can envision what each ingredient will bring to the sensory experience, you'll have an idea of what each will bring to a blend. This is not as daunting a task as it may seem at first, because there are good descriptions in books, articles, product catalogs, Web sites, etc. Strive to develop an internal sensory database of what all these ingredients can bring to a blend. So taste, taste and taste some more. That is one of the best ways one can focus on blending technique.

2. Be disciplined by recording your successes and your failures, and more importantly, why they worked or didn't work. At TeaSource we have a database of hundreds of blending experiments. The vast majority of them didn't cut it, but a number of our more successful blends evolved from previous failures.

3. Know your customers. In Tea-Blending as a Fine Art (1896) Joseph Walsh wrote, "The dealer must study to understand the tastes and preferences of his customers for whom the blend is to be prepared." Customization is key.

4. Look for inspiration everywhere: food recipes, perfumes and related industries (like new coffee flavors). Inspiration can come from anywhere, even from a favorite saying. Someone speaking very broken English once described the region in China where my daughter was born as "green...mountain...flower." After hearing this, my first thought was, "How beautiful." My second thought was, "What a great name for a tea." And I began working on the challenge of creating a blend that could suffice for the mystical name. Since then, this tea has become one of our best sellers.

5. Check the practicality of your blend. If you plan on creating blends, do the cost calculations to ensure that the blend will be profitable for you to sell. Research to make sure that all ingredients will be available at approximately the same prices for the long-term. Also, determine if there are acceptable alternatives for any of the ingredients you plan to include in the blend.

6. Use high-quality ingredients to create superior blends. Never use blending to get rid of inferior or damaged products. In every art, quality materials are nonnegotiable. Would Michelangelo have settled for an inferior mass of marble from which to sculpt his David?

7. Constantly taste and re-evaluate your blends and ingredients to be aware of (and compensate for) seasonal quality and taste. Creating a tea blend is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing process of quality assurance, and revisiting your creations may even inspire refinement or new blends altogether.

8. When finalizing a blend, seek input from customers, employees, peers, friends, etc. They're an invaluable sounding and tasting board for your creations before you introduce the blend to the public.

9. Always let the mixed blend sit in an airtight container for at least 72 hours. Tea blends, like fine wine, need time for ingredients to coalesce and for the final flavor to emerge.

10. With any new tea blend, market it. Create a great name, and by all means be inventive; everyone loves a clever name. Have free tastings, distribute samples, feature it in your signage and bulletin boards, etc.

Left-Brain Methodology at Work
Mike Spillane, owner of G.S. Haly Company, a San Francisco, Calif.-based fine tea importer, has a very unique approach to the art of tea blending. "I graph [the flavor profile] in my head, before I begin blending," he says. In other words, he identifies the different sensory elements that, as a whole, comprise the flavor, such as weight, brightness and astringency. Before he begins the actual blending process, he envisions a line graph that projects where the peaks in the flavor profile ought to be, indicating which elements of the flavor profile might be more subdued-the low points in the mental graph. Spillane readily admits that the end result may differ from the flavor graph he originally envisioned. But by having a clear idea of where he wants to go in terms of taste, Spillane has a tangible goal to work towards. He is a firm believer that the road to getting to that desired taste is much more about accuracy than efficiency.

   Spillane has a number of other tips for novice blenders. "Keep it simple," he urges. He recommends limiting the number of teas in a straight blend to no more than three, avoiding a common faux pas newbies often make: using excessive ingredients. If the blend gets too complicated, the flavor gets too complicated, perhaps even muddled.

   And if you are going to add flavor enhancers, like flowers, fruits or herbs, to a tea blend, Spillane advises limiting these additional ingredients to no more that five to 10 percent. Many of these ingredients, in fact, add very little flavor in relation to the amount of weight they add to the blend, thus diluting the final product. (As with any rule, there are exceptions, and some herbs are definitely exceptions that can add substantial flavor.)

The Whimsy of Right-Brain Blenders
Cynthia Knotts of Woodinville, Wash.-based Golden Moon Tea has a completely different approach to tea blending. Describing the first tea she ever developed: "It took all of about five minutes to throw together a few ingredients...A little hand-plucked black tea, a pinch of top-quality green leaf, a few vanilla bean slices, and some aromatic jasmine flowers, haphazardly stirred by hand in a small bowl. And Vanilla Jasmine has been Golden Moon Tea's best seller ever since." Knotts' whimsical, open-minded experimentation yielded great success for her, proving that the technique of sure and steady as well as a more lenient process can be equally effective in blending.

   Knotts also employs what might be called an Eastern tea philosophy rather than a Western tea philosophy when blending. In the West, the emphasis seems to be almost entirely on the end result (i.e., the taste of the finished blend). What Knotts considers an Eastern tea philosophy incorporates a more holistic approach. She takes into account "the character and style of the dry leaf, the aroma of the infused wet leaf and the complex nature of the resulting tea liquid. Earth, fire, air, and water. In a great tea, the four elements come together in harmony." As the East is the historic origin of all tea, her method is certainly steeped in the wisdom of ages.

   Also preferring a right-brained approach to tea blending is Bruce Richardson, founder of The Elmwood Inn in Perryville, Kentucky, and creator of several successful tea blends. "It comes out of a creative process, it's part of an artistic approach and it tends to be a very serendipitous thing," he says. And it's a personally fulfilling process as well. Richardson says that he tends to approach creating a blend without a specific flavor profile in mind. Instead, he may start with a tea he likes but feels lacks a certain something, and after much experimentation, build a blend around it. Once the tea has achieved that rare je ne sais quoi, he knows it's a success.

   A stalwart piece of advice that Richardson offers novice blenders is not to concoct the obvious froufrou blends (i.e., straight teas with strong flowers, fragrances or fruity elements). Richardson suggests emphasizing straight tea blends, even if it means having to educate your customers on the differences between a Darjeeling/Keemun blend (a fusion of the champagne of tea-an Indian black tea-with the burgundy of tea, a Chinese black) vs. a Ceylon/Assam blend (a robust Sri Lankan black tea blended with a zesty North Indian black). Froufrou blends tend to attract people's attention for a short period, while classic straight tea blends develop life-long customers. And life-long customers, devotees to the art, are what tea blenders ultimately want to cultivate.

Winning Favor with Custom Blends
Richardson is a firm advocate of tea businesses creating custom blends. Whether you are a retail store or a wholesaler, creating custom blends "endears you to your customers," he says. And it gives your customers something absolutely unique, a signature item to offer them. At the same time you become the only source in the world for that particular blend. It's a rare competitive edge that goes a long way in this ever-expanding tea market.

   Richardson has taken this even further by creating numerous custom blends for individuals, particularly celebrities. Among his celebrity clients are the likes of blockbuster movie screenwriter/producer/director Jerry Bruckheimer, veteran radio and television personality Rick Dees and action-movie hero Steven Seagal (whose blend includes gunpowder green tea and chamomile). His modus operandi is to match the personality to the tea, a philosophy which has obviously been working for him.

   So whether you're a right-brained novice or a left-brained veteran, every blender has something to contribute to the art of tea blending, be it plotting mental flavor graphs, adhering to a philosophy of haphazard experimentation or simply following one's intuition. An open mind, a steady hand and a warm heart for one's customers are a good start on the road to blending prowess. And as tea blenders, we are artists poised to create masterpieces for the epicure, guided by the tongue as one's canvas and tea and its ingredients as the palette.

Bill Waddington is the owner of TeaSource, a tea retail and wholesale specialty tea establishment in St. Paul, Minnesota. He can be reached at 877/768-7233 or via www.teasource.com.