It’s not easy becoming a tea expert.

Our tea buyers train and learn for years before they can remove the word “trainee” from their title. The fine art of tasting and blending great tea takes a huge amount of time and practice to perfect.

One of the best ways to learn about tea is to visit it at its source – so the Yorkshire Tea training involves many months spent exploring tea estates and gardens in India, Sri Lanka, China and beyond.

That’s what tea buyer Henry is doing right now – and we’ve asked him to put pen to paper and write about his experiences.

Here’s the first entry, which he wrote just before heading off on his trip.

I think due to the unique experiences I am surely going to have in the fascinating industry that tea is, and visiting some of the best tea producing countries in the world, I can’t help but be excited... but with that also come some nerves about with the challenges I’ll certainly face along the way.

I am most looking forward to visiting India, as the rich culture combined with the great quality tea they make from Assam to Darjeeling will surely be an eye opener.

Also visiting China, where tea was first discovered, will be really useful for my training.

As well as questions, I have also been given advice from friends, family and colleagues on the countries, cultures, weather, food etc.

It varied from, “drink lots of water (bottled only)” to, “make sure you go on a tuk-tuk through the streets of Calcutta”.

I suppose it’s up to me to do the rest – and I guess only time will tell which advice was worth taking.