A student of the leaves… 🌱 🍵

We love connecting with tea lovers, who are as passionate about high-grade, quality loose leaf tea as we are! 

Thibaut Chuzeville or  @forthesakeoftea as he’s known on Instagram, has one of the most coveted jobs in the industry! As a Tea Sommelier, Thibaut’s job is to pair delicious tea and food together, like you would do with wine. He’s also working on exciting new tea project…

Thanks for being part of our shake, pssssch, POUR movement and community!

1. Perhaps holding one of the most coveted and rare roles as a Tea Sommelier in Australia. We would love to know how you have stamped your personality on this position title?

I like to show my personality through the tea list or menu. Personally I select tea from different origins, the 6 types of tea and rare tea. Also at the table I share the story of the leaves with education and fun.

The story of the tea leaves is for me one of the most important facts when serving tea, because we (sommelier) have the duty to brew correctly to respect the work of the people who made those teas and to make our guests understand the different between high quality or grand cru tea and everyday morning tea.

2. Born in France and well-travelled through Europe and Asia you have seen tea through the lens of many cultures. We are curious as to where you see the future of tea in Australia.

Australian do have an English way of drinking tea in their tradition. But I believe that is changing a lot but also that peoples as other beverage (wine, beer, gin …) went to drink better by knowing where they beverages is from and how it been made. We already have so many peoples bringing so many incredible and good tea to the country, so I think Tea in Australia will be more and more about quality over cheap quantity.

3. We think you have a great talent for creating tea and food pairings. What are some of the key considerations? 

Thank you very much you are too kind. For me pairing tea with food is like an emotion or a sentiment, I need to understand the food and cooking style I’ll be working with. I like to be able to try each element of the dish individually to get the flavour and see how they make me feel.

Then only after this, I try different teas to pair with the dish or food. To understand the cooking style you are going to work with is primordial but also if you are pairing a Tasting menu, the structure of the menu (Fish, veggie, meat, cold, room temperature, frozen, the texture of the dish….) and serving order of each dish will affect which tea you can use and which brewing technique and temperature.

4. You're invited to a party, you can only take one of the East Forged crew with you (Mico🐵 Stay Wondrous | Notsu🐷 Live Connected | Saka😼 Forge an independent life) with you. Who would you take and why?

I’ll go with Mico, maybe because I like the idea of “Stay Wondrous” in any occasion (French !!!) but also that he seems nice, fun and generous (All needed for a good time with friends).

5. How would you describe our East Forged brews? Who do you think they would appeal and when would you crack one open?

For me East Forged is a new beautiful way of drink cold Teas but even more important it keeps the characteristic of each tea, so I’ll describe it a Fresh, Elegant and Fun.

I think they will appeal to young peoples (It can be a way of bringing them to drink better tea !!!) and peoples who cares more and more about their own health.