Sip & Sense: Tea Tasting, Sensory Lab and Blending Experience.

Tea tasting, but not as you know it. Put your senses to the test with tea flights, sensory experiments and food pairings!
About this Event
SIP & SENSE: Can You Trust Your Taste Buds?
An interactive sensory tea experience where science meets tea, creativity & connection.

Bird & Blend Tea Co. × The Flavour Academy

Think tea tasting… but not as you know it.

Join us for Sip & Sense, a playful and interactive evening designed to completely change the way you experience tea.

Hosted by Zenia, Sensory & Consumer Scientist and founder of The Flavour Academy, you'll put your senses to the test through a series of surprising experiments, curated tea tastings, food pairings and creative challenges.

Can colour trick you into tasting flavours that aren't there?
Can one tea taste completely different depending on how it's served?
What happens when you pair tea with the right food?
And can you design a tea that perfectly matches your sensory personality?

You'll have to come and find out.

No tea expertise needed - just bring your curiosity.

🍸 Start with a welcome tea cocktail

Settle in with a delicious tea cocktail, available spiked or zero-proof, while you meet the group, explore the grazing board and get ready to put your senses to the test.

🧪 Step inside the Tea Lab

This is where things get interesting.

Through playful sensory experiments, Zenia will show you how aroma, colour, taste, temperature and expectation can influence what you think you're tasting.

You may even discover that your eyes have been telling your taste buds what to think

Expect mystery samples, sensory challenges and a few surprises along the way.

🍵 Take a Tea Flight

Explore a specially curated selection of Bird & Blend teas, experiencing different flavour profiles, aromas and styles.

But rather than simply being told what you're supposed to taste, you'll learn how to notice, describe and experience flavour for yourself.

There are no wrong answers.

🍪 Discover Tea & Food Pairings

What happens to a tea when you take a bite of something sweet, creamy, chocolatey or crunchy?

You'll explore selected tea and food pairings and discover how food can completely change the way a tea tastes - and vice versa.

A grazing board will also be available throughout the evening.

🌿 Become the blender

Then it's your turn.

Using everything you've discovered about your own preferences throughout the evening, you'll take part in a hands-on tea blending workshop.

Choose your ingredients.
Build your flavour profile.
Create your blend.
Give it a name.

And most importantly..

Take your very own signature tea creation home with you.

Meet your host

Zenia is a Sensory & Consumer Scientist, Nutritionist and founder of The Flavour Academy.

Her work explores something most of us experience every single day but rarely think about: why things taste the way they do.

Using sensory science and consumer research, Zenia helps people and food and drink businesses understand how sight, aroma, taste, texture, memory, expectation and context influence our experience of food and drink.

For Sip & Sense, she's taking sensory science out of the laboratory and bringing it to the tea table.

Expect less lecture, more experimenting.