Guwahati: Assam, India’s tea heartland, has secured three places in the country’s first batch of formally certified Tea Sommeliers, underlining the growing push to move beyond tea production and build professional expertise around the beverage.
Bhargav Raj Barkakoty, Jayant Jalan and Pritam Kr Sharma are among seven participants from across India who successfully completed the 60-hour “Essentials of Tea Sommelier” course conducted by Tea Board India at the Darjeeling Tea Research & Development Centre (DTRDC), Kurseong, from August 3 to 9.
The other four successful candidates are Anandh Kumar of Tamil Nadu, Bhumeet Nandal of Haryana, and Akash Deep Roy and Ajay Sashankar of West Bengal.
The course is the first Government-launched, NCVET-approved certificate programme in Tea Sommelier skills, and is aligned with NSQF Level 4. The qualification, issued by the Agriculture Skill Council of India (ASCI) under the NCVET framework, carries 60 hours of training and two credits.
The programme goes beyond conventional tea production, introducing participants to the art and science of understanding, tasting and presenting tea. Its curriculum covers the role of a tea sommelier, tea appreciation in fine dining and premium settings, tasting protocols and palate development, tea blending and innovation, and artisanal and future-oriented tea practices.
The initiative could be particularly significant for Assam, which accounts for roughly half of India’s tea production and has one of the world’s best-known tea-growing identities.
While Assam has long been recognised for the scale of its tea production, the emergence of trained tea sommeliers opens up opportunities to create greater value around the product through premium tea promotion, professional tea service, retail, hospitality, consumer education and tea tourism.
A tea sommelier’s role is not limited to serving tea. Training enables professionals to understand and communicate differences in aroma, flavour, appearance, liquor, preparation and craftsmanship—turning a familiar beverage into a more experiential and knowledge-driven product.
The course was designed for beginners as well as hospitality professionals, tea enthusiasts, aspiring sommeliers and those working in tea retail and marketing.
The participation of three candidates from Assam in the inaugural batch therefore carries significance for a State where tea is deeply woven into the economy, culture and identity.
The initiative also signals a broader shift in how tea can be viewed—not merely as an agricultural commodity measured by production volumes, but as a product whose value can be enhanced through knowledge, experience, presentation and professional service.
For Assam, the challenge now may be to build on this first step and develop a stronger ecosystem of tea professionals capable of taking the State’s tea story from the plantation to the premium table.