Our Master Blenders: Guardians of Quality
Our Master Blending team taste every Twinings blend at least six times from bush to shelf.
It takes 9-12 years to train our Master Blenders, they are immersed in the world of tea, visiting sourcing locations around the globe and tasting up to 400 cups of tea every day to ensure quality and consistency. Between them, our Master Blenders bring two and a half centuries of experience to the role.
Andrew Whittingham
Head of Master Blending
What is a typical day for you?
On a normal day the Master Blending team taste more than 400 cups of tea, each brewed under precise conditions. As each batch is prepared for tasting, I evaluate it using a set of 95 descriptors to categorise the leaves based on colour, viscosity, strength and flavour. Each of the more than 8.5bn+ teabags we produce annually has to be consistent with the flavour consumers expect, so we are constantly comparing and adjusting to ensure quality is maintained. It’s meticulous, but incredibly rewarding work.
How do you keep tea tasting consistent when it’s a natural product that changes with the weather?
That’s really the essence of my role – managing change. Tea is an agricultural crop, so everything from rainfall and soil to altitude and region can alter its taste. Our job as Master Blenders is to take varying batches and blend them into something familiar and dependable. So, even if there’s been a long winter in China or a wet summer in India, your favourite cup will taste familiar, just the way you remember it.
What does it take to train as a Master Blender?
From first enrolling in our Blending Academy, it’s a journey of between 9-12 years. You need to learn to tell the difference not just between countries of origin like Kenya and Sri Lanka but also between regions like Darjeeling and Assam, potentially getting even more specific down to the characteristics of an individual garden. You travel to tea-growing regions, learning from agronomists and producers to understand how climate and processing affect the leaf.
Vitor da Silva
Master Tea Blender
Tell us about your role at Twinings and what you do.
I am one of the Master Blenders here at Twinings. We see ourselves as the guardians of quality and the main part of our role is to ensure that every cup of Twinings tea consistently tastes as great as the last.
What is a typical day for you?
On a typical day, the Master Blending team will taste up to 400 cups of tea. Our tasting room is often a symphony of slurping all sorts of delicious teas sourced from across the world.
We also spend a lot of time working on new blends together with our Research and Innovation colleagues. Twinings sells teas in more than 120 countries, tailoring each blend to meet consumer needs, so there’s always lots to work on.
What do you love about your job?
Tea - We regularly get to taste some real treats of the tea world, which is making my mouth water as I type. Relationships - they say everyone knows everyone in the tea world, which is very true. Cultures - We travel to tea estates relatively frequently and so are very lucky to get to meet fantastic people along the way and indeed experience fascinating cultures. We also get to visit the countries where our teas are sold in, which is always really enjoyable and key to helping us understand consumer preferences. Delighting consumers is by far the greatest perk of the job, there’s nothing better than knowing that the products we work so hard on brings such enjoyment to so many people across the word.
Bryony Osmond
Master Tea Blender
Tell us about your role at Twinings and what you do.
I’m a Master Blender at Twinings, and my job is all about ensuring every cup of tea meets the highest standards of quality and taste. We lead the blending strategy, work closely with the Buying and Research & Innovation teams. I also mentor trainee Buyers/Blenders who are on the Master Blending Academy and am also fortunate enough to and represent Twinings at industry events.
What is a typical day for you?
A typical day involves tasting—lots of tasting! We might start with some of our weekly created blends, then sensory evaluations of new blends, then move on to reviewing ingredient batches (tea and herbs) for new products. I spend considerable time working on projects that are creating product experiences that delight our customers- both domestic and international . No two days are the same, but every day revolves around flavour, quality, and innovation.
What do you love about your job?
I love the craftsmanship and heritage behind every cup of tea. There’s something incredibly rewarding about connecting people to the story of each blend—the provenance, the growers, and the artistry involved. I also enjoy the sensory challenge; tasting hundreds of teas daily sharpens your palate and keeps you humble. And then there’s the global impact: knowing that Twinings blends are enjoyed in over 120 countries and that our work supports communities worldwide makes this role truly meaningful.
