Tea taster with a tongue worth R5m

Master tea blender Jonathan Kelsey takes a whiff of one of his company's signature brews before tasting. Picture: Gcina Ndwalane

Master tea blender Jonathan Kelsey takes a whiff of one of his company's signature brews before tasting. Picture: Gcina Ndwalane

Published May 5, 2015

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Cape Town - Tea taster wanted.

Those were the words of a classified job advert 26 years ago that led a Durban man to have the country’s most valuable tongue. Master tea blender, Jonathan Kelsey of Kloof, has insured his taste buds and tongue for R5-million.

Kelsey, one of the directors at Joekels Tea Packers in Pinetown, has been tasting tea professionally since 1989. The insurance of his “tool of trade” will kick in should it be damaged in any way – rendering him unable to taste the teas which ensures consistency throughout the various blends.

Kelsey emigrated from the United Kingdom to South Africa with his parents as a child. Coming from a place where tea is the “national drink”, he said he had been drinking tea all his life.

“My mother would pour some tea from her own cup into a saucer to cool down for me to drink, like a cat,” he chuckles.

Kelsey also recalls watching “a bald man with glasses, slurping and spitting tea like they do with wine. I remember being so fascinated, but soon forgot about it”.

It would be almost 10 years later that the image of the bald man would come back to him when, while working in the water industry, he spotted a job advert for a tea taster in the Daily News – the Cape Argus’s sister newspaper.

“I was trained by a master tea blender, John Paulet, and learnt to differentiate the taste of different teas from around the world,” he said.

In 1994, Kelsey branched out on his own and founded Joekels with friend, Joe Swart.

The company, which now employs 170 people, are blenders and packers of some of South Africa’s most popular household brands of quality tea, including Tetley Tea, Tea Time, Tea for Me, Tea4Kidz, Laager Rooibos and the strong regional brands Phendula, Teeco, and Southalls Rooibos. They buy all their teas from Africa.

The move to insure follows a similar initiative by Tetley, the world’s second-largest tea maker, which insured the taste buds of master tea blender Sebastian Michaelis for £1-million last year.

Tetley has a stake in Joekels.

South Africans consume 20 million kgs of black tea and 7 million kgs of rooibos a year, placing the market value at about R1.8-billion.

“After a good cup of tea, you feel rejuvenated. It is the second most consumed beverage in the world after water,” Kelsey said.

He plans to continue honing his passion. Kelsey has passed on the love of a brew to his youngest of three children. “My 4-year-old daughter drinks tea hot or cold, with milk and honey or any of our variations for kids. It’s all she wants to drink.”

Cape Argus

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