UC Davis Global Tea Institute
Professional Tea Certificate Program, 2023–2024

Katharine P. Burnett, Ph.D.
Founder and Director, Global Tea Institute for the Study of Tea Culture and Science
Professor and Chair, Department of Art and Art History
University of California, Davis

The University of California at Davis’s Global Tea Institute for the Study of Tea Culture
and Science launched its inaugural online course, the UC Davis Global Tea Institute
Professional Tea Certificate Program, 2023–2024. This comprehensive course introducing
key aspects of the tea industry was developed at the request of members of theinternational tea industry. These members realized that if their staff were better educated,then they would be better equipped to address a wide variety of issues in the tea industry,
regardless of their role within it.
The participating industry leaders who helped develop the course were members of theTea Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Global Tea Institute for the Study of Tea Culture andScience (GTI).1 Working together with GTI leadership, this group coordinated with UC

GTI’s TAC is a philanthropic group. Member companies are listed at https://globaltea.ucdavis.edu/teaadvisory-committee.
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Davis’s office of Continuing and Professional Education (CPE), to develop and offer thisprofessional tea course to the public.
With a well-established portfolio of online professional development programs, CPE wasan ideal partner for this course.2 Because their portfolio already included such beveragestudy courses as beer brewing and wine making,3 it was clear CPE also could provide
suitable expertise with the world’s most-prepared beverage of tea. And, because CPE
courses are developed to help international working professionals gain new skills toadvance their careers, and are designed to be engaging, interactive, and provide a UC
Davis-quality education to learners wherever they may be, it was clear at the outset that
CPE would dependably help to create a sound professional tea program for GTI.
The GTI
Professional Tea
program was long

UC Davis, Global Tea Institute - Professional Tea Program 2023/2024
DateWeek

27-Sep4-Oct11-Oct123(2021 Place) Topic
The Human Relationship with Tea: Culture, History, and HealthTea 101 - History of Tea and Culture
Tea 101 - Tea Drinking and Consumption
Social Justice/ Labor Laws/ Politics

Speaker
Brendon Shah/KatharineWill Battle
Raj Vable(Ethical Tea Partnership, IDH Sustainable Trade)

Science and Growth of Tea: Camellia sinensis, Sensory, Taste, Organics, and Sustainability
18-Oct4

Tea: Camellia sinensis

Dil Seneviratne(Plant Bio, Cultivars, Plant Chem, Pests/Disease )in the planning,
made longer still

25-Oct
1-Nov
8-Nov
15-NovTea Producing Countries
Tea Tasting / Sensory/ Grading
Growing Tea /Terroir

8

Supply Chain

Eliot Jordan
Marcus Wulf
Nigel Melican(Horticulture, H2O, Topo, Microclime, Harvest, Quality )Brendon Shah/Bhavin Shah

Production of Tea for Sale: Manufacturing, Safety and Regulation, Social Justice, and Politics

due to delays

22-Nov
29-Nov
6-Dec
13-Decrelating to the20-Dec

COVID pandemic.

5679101112

Intro to Tea Production
Manufacturing Tea - Deep Dive
Food Safety/QA/ Regulatory Reqs/ Technical Factors
Tea and Health

Kevin Gascoyne
Lalith Paranavitana
Scott Rimer
Dr. Saziye Ilgaz

Business of Tea: Marketing, Brand Management, Distribution, Supply Chain, and Value Adding
13

Sustainability / Organics

Manik Jayakumar(Rainforest Alliance, UTZ = Rainforest )1/10/2024

14

Value Adding to Tea

1/17/2024

15Distribution Chan./ Marketing/ Brand Management

Helen Hume/Paul Jefferies
Paul Harney
Rona Tison

Figure 1 Schedule of GTI-CEP course lessons, 2023–2024

For more information about the CPE, please see https://cie.ucdavis.edu/.
Information about these UC Davis CPE courses is available at https://cpe.ucdavis.edu/areas-study/brewing
and https://cpe.ucdavis.edu/areas-study/winemaking.
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3Happily, the course finally launched to the public in Fall 2023. Students who completed thecourse received a UC Davis CPE Certificate at the end.
Over 15 weekly sessions of live instruction via Zoom, the course offered a wide range oftopics, from the history and culture of tea at the beginning to what the professional needs
to consider for moving tea internationally from farm to consumer. More specifically, thetopics were divided into 4 different categories (Figure 1). The categories and their topics
were the following. In the first section on The Human Relationship with Tea: History,Culture and Health, topics focused on the “History of Tea and Culture,” “Tea Drinking andConsumption,” and “Social Justice/ Labor Laws/ Politics: Ethical Tea Partnership andSustainable Trade.” In the category, Science and Growth of Tea: Camellia sinensis,Sensory, Taste, Grading, Organics and Sustainability, topics discussed were “Tea/Camelliasinensis: Plant Biology, Cultivars, Plant Chemistry, Pests and Diseases”; “Tea Producing
Countries: Tea Tasting, Sensory, and Grading”; “Growing Tea /Terroir: Horticulture, H2O,Topo, Microclime, Harvest, and Quality”; and issues surrounding “Supply Chains.” In thecategory, Production of Tea for Sale: Manufacturing, Safety and Regulation, Social Justice,and Politics, topics discussed were “Introduction to Tea Production,” “Manufacturing Tea:a Deep Dive,” “Food Safety, QA, Regulatory Requirements, Technical Factors,” and “Teaand Health.” In the section on the Business of Tea: Marketing, Brand Management,
Distribution, Supply Chain and Value Adding to Tea, instructors focused on “Sustainabilityand Organics: Rainforest Alliance, UTZ = Rainforest,” “Adding Value to Tea,” and“Distribution Channels, Marketing, and Brand Management.”

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Most of the instructors for the course were tea industry experts. These included RonaTison, Executive Vice President Corporate Relations & PR, Ito En (North America) Inc; Helen
Hume, Group Head of Leaf Tea at Finlays (UK); and Brendan Shah, CEO, and Bhavin Shah,COO, both of International Tea Importers (Los Angeles). A few professors (including thisauthor) also offered instruction on the history and culture of tea in China. Each classmeeting was supported by expert staff from CPE, Jon Hughes and Heather Ogle, andTeaching Assistant Hunter Kiley, each of whom helped the meetings run smoothly.
Instruction typically was organized around a short lecture followed by small group
discussion in Zoom break-out rooms. People would return to the group as a whole for moregroup discussion, and then the process would repeat again throughout the 2-hour classmeeting.
At the end of the course, anoptional Capstone Experience day(January 24, 2024) was offered on
the UC Davis campus (Figure 2) inconjunction with GTI’s 9th Annual
Colloquium, Tea in a Changing
World.4

Figure 2 Capstone Day itinerary, January 24, 2024

For more information about GTI’s 9th Annual Colloquium, please see
https://globaltea.sf.ucdavis.edu/events/9th-annual-gti-colloquium-tea-changing-world-0 .
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5The Capstone Experience ($500) was offered either as part of the GTI Professional Tea
course ($1500) or as a stand-alone course. Either way, the Capstone event provided theopportunity for students to apply their theoretical learning in designing, blending,evaluating, and marketing a new tea of their own creation. Other Capstone experiential
events included a session onSensory Evaluation & Tea Wheel
Experience in the renowned RMI
Sensory Theater,5 led by GTI
sensory scientist Jean-Xavier
Guinard. There, the group wasinvited to taste different types ofteas and propose examples of theFigure 3 GTI Professor Jean-Xavier Guinard, RMI Sensory Theater, UC Davis.
Photograph by the author.

lexicon used to describe teas as he updated the group on the forthcoming UC Davis GTI Tea
Flavor Wheel that he is developing (Figure 3). Later, a session in UC Davis’s Special
Collections, Shields Library gave
students the opportunity to work witharchivists to view and handle rarebooks on tea, including many earlyworks in Japanese (Figure 4). While
there, students also viewed the special
Figure 4 Rare book viewing, Special Collections, Shields Library,UC Davis. Photograph by Heather Ogle.Photograph by the author.
5exhibition, Heaven and Earth in a Small

RMI is the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at UC Davis, https://rmi.ucdavis.edu/.

6Pot, Selections of Tea Ware from the GTI Collection of Art and Material Culture, on view
throughout Winter Quarter 2024. This exhibition featured Japanese ceramic tea ware andearly illustrated Japanese books on tea.
The Capstone day was designed so that participating students would be on campus toattend the annual GTI Colloquium. There they had the opportunity to further expand theirknowledge of tea on the theme of Tea in a Changing World, and from the perspectives ofculture and society, science and health, and the industry.
As for the students, who were they? The GTI professional tea course was aimed at thosewith an interest in tea industry professions. Nonetheless, it was also open to the public atlarge, regardless of background or skill level. The course enrolled true beginners as well as
seasoned professionals.
The target number of enrollees was 20; we surpassed the target, enrolling 26 students. To
be sure, most students were from the US, but others were from Japan, France, and Mexico.
English was the language of instruction.
Students were asked to rank themselves for various factors; 16 of the 26 responded.
When asked to rank their knowledge of tea as a commodity, most respondents felt they
were beginners (3 students) or had little experience (7 students). A smaller group believed
they had some experience (3 students) or a good amount of experience (3 students). Nonefelt they were experts. Most wanted either a fair amount of instruction (8 students) or very
in-depth instruction (8 students). Surely modesty played a role in these responses, as at

7least some of the students are known to be extremely knowledgeable about tea and itsindustry.
When asked about which topic they were most excited about, the group was split
between the categories. The largest percent voted for the Business of Tea: Marketing,Brand Management, Distribution, Supply Chain and Value Adding to Tea (7 students). For
the rest, 4 students chose the Human Relationship with Tea: History, Culture and Health.
Two students chose the Science and Growth of Tea: Camellia sinensis, Sensory, Taste,Grading, Organics and Sustainability, and 2 again chose Tea Production and Sales:
Manufacturing, Safety and Regulation, Social Justice and Politics.
As the class effectively has just ended, levels of satisfaction with it are still being
assessed. Nonetheless, anecdotal evidence indicates that each group — students,instructors, and organizers — seemed satisfied with the course. No doubt improvements
will be made for the next offering, but all participants seem to agree that this course should
be offered again. It is anticipated that it will be offered again in Fall 2024. Information about
the next offering of the course will be posted on the GTI and CPE websites.6

Links to the 2023–2024 course are available at https://globaltea.ucdavis.edu/gti-program-industryprofessionals and https://cpe.ucdavis.edu/course/uc-davis-global-tea-initiative-program-industryprofessionals.
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