Blending Teas: Key Considerations

Blending teas is at the same time incredibly easy and extremely difficult. Anyone can blend a tea, throw in a few inclusions (the proper word for dried flowers, fruits, or pieces of candy designed to add color and sometimes flavor to a blend), and create their blend. Adagio has been very successful letting customers create their blends on our website. That said, making a good, stable blend is not easy. Blending is both an art and a science. You need to understand how the blend will settle during storage and transport, how the flavors will mingle and change over time, which flavors will fade first, and what the customer experience will be using different types of water at various temperatures for different durations.

Quality flavored teas are made with liquid flavoring agents, and the inclusions you see are primarily for aesthetic appeal. These liquid flavoring agents themselves are expensive, sometimes volatile, and differ dramatically in quality. They are also sold in large quantities appropriate for blending thousands of pounds of tea.

The best way to explain the complexity might be to compare it to the difference between cooking a good meal at home and being able to consistently deliver a top-quality culinary experience in a restaurant over thousands of meals under less than perfect circumstances. It's not enough to be good. The customer must choose your tea and be willing to pay for it.