A sommelier for tea? Meet tea expert Katherine Burnett

Katherine Burnett is now a recognized expert in all things tea — she just received her certification as a tea sommelier from the Tea and Herbal Association of Canada.

Burnett, 67, began selling tea at the Charlottetown Farmers Market from her stall as Lady Baker's Tea. Her business now takes up three rooms in the basement of the Kirk of St. James historic church in downtown Charlottetown — affectionately nicknamed the abbey — and includes retailing and wholesaling tea in bags, packages and bulk in dozens of local craft shops and restaurants all over North America, plus catering. 

"It's been fun. It's also been mind-boggling — who would ever have thought that there would be so much to tea? I've really just scratched the surface," she said. "It's exciting to be a part of that."

'Exciting time'

Tea took off as a popular beverage a few years ago and sales have continued to increase, Burnett said. 

"So much so that it's just really become an exciting time for Canadian consumers to get more good-quality teas," Burnett said. 

To become a sommelier, Burnett took an online course of eight six-week modules, or 48 weeks. She spread it out over the last two years since she was running her business at the same time. At the end of each module, she had to do an oral presentation, a multiple-choice exam and what is called "blind cupping."

Blind cupping involves identifying a tea by its taste, appearance and smell. The tea, sent from head office in Ontario, had to be prepared in a very particular way by someone else — in this case, one of Burnett's employees.

"They had to remove all the leaves out of sight from me and just by looking at the cup, smelling and sipping — and there's a method of slurping when you're cupping teas! — I had to then say what the tea was, whether it was black, white, green, which wasn't usually too hard. But then I had to tell where it grew and the processing method."

'Quite scary'

"It was quite scary every time!" she said. Only one tea tripped her up, Burnett said — an oolong, which is inherently tricky because it is somewhere between a green and a black tea. "I really was terrified for the final blind cupping exam." 

In tasting the eight teas, the course covered most of the major tea-growing areas in the world, she said. 

"Understanding the climate, altitude, whatever growing conditions were needed, so we had to learn all that," she said.  Fortunately she had been to India with the Tea and Herbal Association a few years ago and visited tea plantations, so she had an idea how tea grows, is harvested and processed. 

The certification cost her up to $4,000 and Burnett believes it will be worth it, although "it was a lot more work than I expected," she admits.

'I am qualified to do this now'

She already knew how to brew each type of tea to perfection, could identify different teas by appearance and taste, and also understood what teas taste good with what food. 

But she said she feels more confident now that she has the piece of paper to back it up. 

She plans to now develop tasting and pairing workshops where she'll teach others to pair tea and cheese, or tea and chocolate.

"I would feel much better about the fee I would charge knowing I am qualified to do this now," Burnett said. "As a professional I could host these workshops and charge people to do it."

The Tea and Herbal Association has certified about 230 tea sommeliers in Canada. The association is one of only a couple certification bodies in Canada. Burnett believes she is the only sommelier certified by the association in P.E.I. 

Others who took the course with her sell tea, own tea rooms or are connected to tea production in some way, Burnett said. 

More P.E.I. news