Open to all, including students, aficionados, and industry professionals. This 360° exploration of tea covers topics from the history and culture of tea to science, agronomy, marketing and distribution. Classes that combine the convenience of online education with the networking and learning benefits of live instruction over zoom will deliver new insights into this field.
General Topics
- The Human Relationship with Tea: History, Culture and Health
- Science and Growth of Tea: Camellia sinensis, Sensory, Taste, Grading, Organics and Sustainability
- Tea Production and Sales: Manufacturing, Safety and Regulation, Social Justice and Politics
- The Business of Tea: Marketing, Brand Management, Distribution, Supply Chain and Value Adding to Tea
Class Format
This class is designed as an interactive, online experience with live Zoom sessions held with our instructors and the students. Expect to spend approximately two hours a week in class discussions. Class sessions will be recorded for later viewing. There is no outside class work.
For more information about this program, including the daily schedule of topics, download our program flier.
If you have questions about this program, please contact Heather Ogle.
About the Global Tea Institute
The Global Tea Institute's mission is to foster the understanding of tea through evidence-based knowledge with a global perspective–promoting tea research from anywhere in the world, in any discipline and with any methodology. We actively foster knowledge through colloquia, lectures, and workshops that address the needs of the campus, industry and general public. As GTI transitions to become the Global Tea Institute, it is beginning to create curricula to address the needs of scholars, industry and the public. With UC Davis’s top global position in agriculture, nutrition, and food studies, and premier faculty across the disciplines, it has robust resources to offer formal educational programs to both students and tea professionals.
Our efforts rely upon four pillars or principles:
- Function as a social good that can help improve people’s lives and livelihoods around the world.
- Emphasize cultural understanding, recognizing that with humanity’s many similarities and differences, the study of tea (and “teas”) can promote cultural understanding and build community — and within the community, friendship, and from friendship, perhaps even, world peace.
- Build on UC Davis’s success in agriculture – and in fact, on UC Davis’s own long-standing history in tea agriculture, having conducted in-depth research on tea since the 1960s. Aiming to be a pioneer of tea agriculture in the United States, GTI constantly looks towards the future to discover innovations in tea sustainability, cultivation, processing, and more.
- Build on research and teaching, not only in health and wellness but across the disciplines.
As we build out our vision for GTI, we also dream of having our own building with tea rooms and gardens, a dedicated sensory theater, a model processing facility, an exhibition hall to narrate the many stories of tea and more.