About me
Kurush has spent the past 39 years of his professional life in Tea, ALL with Unilever/Brooke Bond/'Lipton Teas and Infusions'.
His experience has covered various Industry roles - specialist tea taster, buyer and blender, trainer and educator, product innovator and developer, sommelier and storyteller. His rich ingredient-knowledge and product (and 'palate' 🙂) expertise spans multiple origins - across the main tea growing countries in Asia, Africa, West Asia (Turkey) and Latin America (Argentina). And his work experience has seen him work in multiple business functions viz Supply Chain, Tea Plantations, Procurement, Quality and R&D - having spent 19 years in India, 8 years in Dubai and 12 years in the UK.
His last role was as Lipton's 'Global R&D Tea Expertise Director', at the Company's Global Innovation Centre in the UK - in the service of the Company's brands (Lipton, PG Tips, Tazo, Pukka, T2...) ...and blends. This role required a 'bush-to-brand' delivery - against innovation design & deploy, Brand inspiration and partnering, Tea Plantation operations, as also playing the role of a 'Tea Ambassador' - by championing a tea culture, infusing passion, instilling belief and building Tea capability across the business. This role also saw him as the Company's Global Tea Standards lead (ie being the 'Quality Custodian/ombudsman of the Company's 'Tealingo' cupping-categorisation-and-fingerprinting 'language' - across a global cadre of upto 80 tea tasters (including apprentices), whose 'palate' necessarily demands a high level of proficiency, uniformity and calibration.
He recalls his joiner years (starting from 1985 !) in India, where he would often be required to taste upto 1000 cups of tea each day ! (following the mantra - 'Practice makes perfect, so perfect your practice' 🙂)
Given his knowledge of the global Tea Industry, Kurush has spoken at Tea Industry Conventions, and been part of jury panels adjudicating Tea quality competitions in India, Dubai and the UK. More recently, he is with the UKTA (UK Tea Academy) - both as Tutor at its Indian Tea Origin Masterclass, as also on the Judging panel for its annual International Tea Awards Competition ('The Leafies')
