Food columnist Jasmine Mangalaseril spills the tea on a Stratford tea sommelier

Legend has it that tea was accidentally created in 2737 BCE, when a leaf floated from its plant into a vessel of recently boiled water intended for Chinese emperor Shen Nong.

Since then, tea has been cultivated, drunk, traded, and blended, but tea sommeliers are a relatively recent concept.

While wine sommeliers have been around since the court of the French King, Louis XIV,  the world's first tea sommelier is thought to have been working in London, U.K. in the early 1990s. Canada's first certified tea sommelier was at Toronto's Fairmont Royal York Hotel 10 years later.

Like a restaurant's wine sommelier, certified tea sommeliers are trained in all aspects of tea. This includes its history and science, categories, cultivation, as well as preparation, blending and culinary applications.

Karen Hartwick is a certified tea sommelier and owner of Tea Leaves tea bar in Stratford, Ont. She traced her love of tea to her grandmother's tea ceremony at home when she brewed loose leaf tea.

Decades later, a friend took Hartwick to a tearoom in an Alberta antique shop. She left with several containers of different loose leaf tea and a new-found love of tea.

She bought a B&B in Stratford, from where she ran Tea Leaves. After guests returned home, they called asking to buy the tea she served.

"They had not experienced beautiful tea…The B&B's 800 number turned into the tea hotline," said Hartwick.

Sommelier certification

Hartwick enrolled in the first Specialty Tea Institute's tea sommelier certification program in 2003.

Over the next five years she learned from experts from tea-growing nations while she and her classmates spent months on each tea category.

"[For example] we would look at white teas. The processing, the growing conditions, history, and then tasting, cupping. We did so much cupping. White teas come from certain areas of China and India, and just being able to compare those," said Hartwick.

Afterward, she travelled to Asian tea gardens to get hands-on experience, picking leaves and learning how to process tea from tea masters.

Back in Canada, she curated Rundles restaurant's tea menu and taught at the Stratford Chef's School. 

"I think because of all of the things I've done, I ended up with a really well-rounded education to take each part further."

While she closed the B&B, Tea Leaves remains open by appointment for sales, consulting and custom blending. She also hosts tea tasting events, focusing on seasonal teas.

Tea categories

"True" teas are made from two varietals of the camellia sinensis plant. Generally, assamica for black teas and sinensis for green and white teas. Oolongs can be made with either.

Hartwick said there are details to note about each variety of tea, including:

• White teas are picked early while there's just a single bud or a bud and two leaves and dried without oxidation. 
• Green teas are picked after the leaves have grown a little bit longer and heated to dry to less than three per cent moisture.
• Black teas are allowed to wilt, then bruised, oxidized and dried.
• Pu-erh teas (made from unoxidized assamica) are fermented and dried.

And, like other crops, growing conditions are a factor. 

"I've had teas come in from Assam, that teas out of a certain field will taste different than another offering from the same tea garden," said Hartwick. "It's just a matter of the mists and the winds."

She also mentioned, within a category, different cultures can have their own processing customs.

"Green teas from China, it's pick wilt and fire, in an oven or a wok. Japan throws a steam process in. And so that's going to give you different nuances with the tastes and even how green a green tea is."

Not just for sipping

If want to try something new, the following are pairings Hartwick suggested.

During afternoon tea:

Japanese sencha provides a good contrast for very sweet options made with lemon curd.

Genmaicha Satsuki (green tea with roasted rice) complements savoury sandwiches.

Hibiscus and berry teas would contrast salmon and cream cheese sandwiches.

If you'd like to try cooking with tea, here are some ideas:

• Fold fruit from a whole fruit tisane into a cake batter and then use the strained tisane as part of the soak.
• Steeped fruit teas made with a black tea base can be folded into creams for desserts
• Smoky lapsang souchong tea leaves can be added to meat rubs or brewed and added to marinade

Regardless, Hartwick has these reassuring words:

"There's no right and wrong answer. It's a matter of that person who's preparing those items and choosing the teas. The sky's the limit."