Sommelier shares joys of drinking tea
.jpg?w=728)
Tea sommelier Yang Mi-jeong
By Kim Bo-eun
The second chapter of Yang Mi-jeong’s life began quite unexpectedly.
Because her sister was working in Sri Lanka, her father suggested the family pay a visit in 2015.
She encountered an interesting practice there.
Despite the hot weather, Sri Lankans drank hot tea, multiple times a day.
At the university where her sister taught, students took breaks between classes to drink tea.
“I was bewildered at first, but after a few days, I developed a liking for black tea,” Yang, 31, said.
“I think the practice of taking the time for a break, to savor a cup of coffee also appealed to me.”
At the time, she was working day and night for one of the largest foreign record labels.
Yang decided she wanted to learn more about tea.
So when she returned to Seoul, she started taking courses, which she found fascinating. Yang earned a tea sommelier certificate.
The more she learnt, the more she wanted to know. So Yang quit work and went back to Sri Lanka, explored tea fields and factories and drank many, many cups of black tea.
Yang then decided to visit European countries which were historically known to drink tea, including the U.K., France, the Netherlands and Portugal.
She had wanted to become a black tea expert, but it was in Europe when she decided she wanted to learn more about Korean tea.
In a sommelier course she took in the U.K., there was a section about Korean tea.
“My teacher said she tried Korean black tea and that it was amazing _ I had never tried it before,” Yang recalled.
“Another classmate from the Netherlands _ after trying Korean tea _ asked why I liked foreign black tea when Korea had its own great tea.”
So she made up her mind to better promote Korean tea.
Yang recently finished posting 15 tea class videos on YouTube, with help from the Gyeonggi Content Agency.
“As I was searching for traditional Korean teas to introduce in the video, I realized even in Korea, local tea was not widely available,” she said.
In the meantime, her strategy is to familiarize young people with tea, which is considered old-fashioned.
Yang said being relatively new to the scene could be an advantage for her.
“Although it has only been two years since I started learning about tea, I think this will enable me to help new-comers approach tea.”
Yang will soon start a podcast on the portal site Naver.