Bart said

Blending Tea

Hello tea lovers and tea sellers.
I am a black tea lover and have 40 years experience with most sorts of tea.
Now last year i started to blend tea myself,not the standard ones like breakfast teas and so on but i try just to follow my own taste and give it my own name.
Some of the recipes where successful but others not.
This comes because i miss the standard knowledge of blending. i have to know witch combinations i can and can not use but above all the proportions of each tea.
It would be great to get some information.

6 Replies
mbanu said

The most straightforward sorts of blends take two teas with complimentary weaknesses, and pair them together. Like maybe you have a cheap Assam tea, that is quite strong but not especially interesting and with little aroma. Maybe you also have a Chinese congou that is quite aromatic, but without much kick. You could try combining the two to get a tea that has the positive aspects of both. This can be harder than it sounds (as teas not improved by blending are usually made worse) but that’s the basic concept. Not too much reliance should be placed on scented teas or essential oil flavorings; the skill in blending is through using pure teas only.

Watch out for negative attributes! For a tea to work well in blending, it can lack positives, but should not have negatives. An unpleasant tea will still be unpleasant even when blended with good tea, much the same way that a pleasant smell (say, flowers) can freshen up a room that doesn’t smell at all, but won’t really neutralize an unpleasant smell.

Now, there is an exception to using tea with negative attributes: the water. A tea that tastes foul in soft water may taste quite nice in hard water. Different flavors within the tea are released depending on water hardness. This is why it is always a good idea to test blends using the water that they will be brewed in, if possible.

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Bart said

thanks a lot Mbanu this is very helpful.
i am very willing to receive more information,links or names of books

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I just jumped right into blending a couple years ago. I like a variety of teas, but sometimes now I taste a blend and I’m like, I could do better. I think being a blender made me more of a snob. ;) Anyway, trial and error and experimenting are both fun. If you ever want to swap tea blends, let me know. :)

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Bart said

sure i wanna give it a strike,
so please tell me all you know if you want,
sometimes i have perfect blends but than later i think i should add some more[other]tea and this little thing can ruin my blend.
and i wanna know the basicrules if they are there?
thanks a lot

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There are no rules to tea. I blend a lot of my own, and I just try out different flavor combinations I think would compliment each other. But there’s nothing set in stone that says it has to be one way or another.

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Bart said

hi Michelle,
actually there are a lot of rules as long as you work with pure tea.
i never use flavors.
but thanks

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