I drank 75 different teas in a single day to help make you the best boba.
As many of you know, I run a mobile bubble tea shop where I throw global boba classes and parties. As part of this, I’ve been rubbing shoulders with the tea community here in Paris and was presented the opportunity by my friends at The bon The bio to join this prestigious tea jury where I taste and rate various Japanese tea.
This year was my 2nd year judging for the Japanese tea selection prize 2022. A few people have been asking me about how the judging process works so I wanted to take sometime to explain this unique process.
The jury happens over the course of an entire day and is broken up into 3 sessions which begin at 9h and end at 18h…but it’s all in a sommelier cave so you can’t tell the time anyways :p
Your score is composed of smell, color and taste with a maximum overall score of 40.
🌸 Then there is a survey on the nodes you sensed in the tea such as: bitterness, mineral, floral..etc. Then we would rate based off how long the flavor lasted in your mouth. You can see a chart with all the nodes here.
Each session had around 25 teas so after the first session, my taste adjusted to the nuances. Your smell and taste is heightened at this point. A short onigiri and karaage lunch then its back to work.
Then we started the next batch of teas for session 2. When I got to around tea 40, all the caffeine hit me at once. I wanted to go running or climbing or sprinting at least but I had to play it cool. We are judges after all. 👩⚖️
So my pent up physical energy created a second section full of anxiety. I wondered if I was judging any of the teas correctly and adjusted some of my previous scores.
Then 15 teas or so in final session was a wild card of Japanese black teas and herbal. These were really cool because they had a bit more pronounced flavors than the standard green teas.
Overall I loved the experience for learning my tea pallet and understanding what to look for in teas. Not all teas are to your taste buds at first but once you take the time to experience all the nodes and dimensions of a tea, you can learn to appreciate it.
Of course, this experience is advancing my ability to design boutique boba flavors. From this experience last year, I discovered Hojicha tea and its now become one of my staple teas in my collection. Trying all these teas helped further my cause for making bubble tea an elevated drinking experience free from low quality products and unhealthy additives.
Want to try some of these hand crafted flavors? Let’s collab! If you want to throw some type of boba of boba event or want to explore what it could look like, write and inquiry here.
