Hi, I’m Suzy and I’m a trainee tea buyer at Taylors of Harrogate.

I’ve spent the past two years tasting and developing my palate, learning from my top tasting colleagues how to choose the best teas to blend together for our Yorkshire Tea, and, as I’ve discovered, there’s a lot more to tea buying than simply drinking loads of cups of tea (although I do a lot of that too!).

This is me in our tea tasting room at Harrogate

To make sure that only the best tea goes into a Taylors tea bag, I also need to learn about the origins of tea and the manufacturing processes that take place before the tea arrives at our factory in Harrogate. Over the next seven months I’ll be travelling overseas, visiting key tea producing countries across the globe to learn from our suppliers, build closer relationships and get firsthand experience of the tea growing process. Our business has a long tradition of sending trainee tea buyers overseas as part of their training, because it’s such a good way to learn.

I’ll be updating the blog frequently so that we can learn together about the fascinating journey tea makes before it ends up in your teapot. My plane leaves today, so I’ll have to dash off to finish packing – at least where I’m going I won’t need woolly hats and scarves anymore!