Amin Afshar – Tea Taster

Ahmad Tea’s tearoom is the powerhouse of the business and the team who are responsible for it work tirelessly to ensure that every cup of tea produced is of a consistently high standard. One of the key members of the tearoom is Amin Afshar and we’re delighted that this month he’s our employee spotlight. It’s time to make your favourite cup of tea and learn about what it’s like to work at Ahmad Tea.

Tell us about your job:

I’m responsible for tasting, monitoring the quality, buying the tea and stock control. One of the main focuses for my job is managing our raw tea stocks. It’s a stressful job as there are so many things at stake: buying the tea when it tastes the best, understanding how the weather may impact the taste and obviously ensuring that we never run out of tea! In the tearoom, together with the tea tasters, I taste around 100-200 cups of tea to ensure that every cup of tea we produce is excellent. My favourite time of the year is when the peak second flush Assam is picked in around June and July. The taste is incredible.

The thing I love about my job is that no two days are the same and every day I get to taste and enjoy a variety of teas. We also have a really good team at Ahmad Tea so it’s a also fun place to work.

I’m privileged to visit some of the tea gardens with whom we work. The smell and the taste of the tea straight from the tea bushes is wonderful.

How do you see the tea industry changing?

Sustainability is a key focus for our business and making progress to remove plastic packaging from our products. We’re also seeing people’s tea taste changing. When I first started working at the business the majority of the tea we sold was black tea. Now we have a much more diversified product range and we sell herbal, cold brew and bubble teas. We’re noticing that our customers are much more adventurous about trying new blends and flavours than twenty years ago.

What do you love about your job?

I love finding out about Ahmad Tea’s charity projects, in particular the clean water project we’ve been involved in with Oxfam in Niger. I also love visiting our flagship factory in the Emirates. It’s always changing and improving, and I love the fact that there are so many employees from all over the world working there, all passionate about tea.

What’s your favourite cup of tea?

I love a cardamon tea.