When Did Everyone Become a Sommelier?
Observer ·
Tea and water specialists are borrowing wine’s most familiar title, but what “sommelier” actually means depends heavily on the training behind it.
The term “sommelier” used to mean wine. Now, it could mean tea and water , too—and, depending on whom you ask, olive oil, honey, even hot sauce. The title has stretched far enough to earn an eye roll; the surprise is how often the good ones earn it back, one better-tasting glass at a time. For most, a traditional sommelier selects and serves wine, advises diners on pairings and may manage a restaurant’s wine list and cellar. Tea and water specialists borrow that familiar title—and some of wine’s authority with it—for an expertise most guests never thought to seek. The promise is recognizable; the training behind it is not. What matters is whether the specialist can show you something you can taste, and whether it changes what you order.
In wine, the most junior, introductory title spans a two-day short course and one of the hardest exams in hospitality. The Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas offers one route through Introductory, Certified, Advanced and Master levels. The two-day introductory course and exam currently cost $949. Certified is a separate examination in theory, blind tasting and restaurant service; the Court strongly recommends three years of industry experience and suggests a year between the first two levels for study. The Master diploma comes after the Advanced and requires oral theory, blind tasting of six wines and practical service and business examinations, with a minimum score of 75 percent in each section. It represents the final stage of that progression, not the qualification held by every working sommelier. Tea and water programs set their own rules, so the shared title guarantees nothing about the training behind it.
When a customer told Catherine Hicks Cosgrove that green tea always tasted bitter, the founder of specialty tea brand Forgrave suggested changing the brewing method. When brewed at 165 to 175 degrees Fahrenheit for one to two minutes, the customer enjoyed the same kind of tea for the first time, Cosgrove claims. Her training had yielded advice the customer could take straight to the kitchen counter.
Cosgrove spent about $2,000 on her International Tea Masters Association qualification, studying from 2018 to around 2020 alongside a corporate career. ITMA’s published course combines two days of initial training with eight weeks of home study, but she deliberately took longer. Her practical work included 18 tea evaluations through successive infusions and a blind assessment of a mystery tea. “The coursework gave me a framework, but the time gave me a palate,” she tells Observer. The payoff becomes apparent when she compares Japanese sencha with Chinese Dragonwell (Longjing). Both are green teas, but sencha is steamed to halt oxidation while Dragonwell is pan-fired. She finds marine, grassy aromas and brothy, savory depth in sencha; Dragonwell tends toward toasted chestnut and a rounder texture. Cosgrove describes “tea sommelier” as an unregulated title and encourages customers to ask how much actual tasting a course involved and whether there was an exam a student could fail.
Independent wine and hospitality consultant Jan Konetzki , a four-time U.K. Sommelier of the Year whose clients include Four Seasons, puts the emphasis on the guest. The growing use of the word sommelier prompts an amused question: “Do I have to say wine sommelier now to clarify?” During his years as head sommelier at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay , the chef’s London flagship, Konetzki recalls serving a regular 125-milliliter glass of Salon Champagne for about £99, against £14 for the house Champagne. The guest wanted a more generous pour and, as Konetzki remembers it, asked for another 25 milliliters at £120. The price mattered less to the patron than feeling well looked after. “It is the gesture of generosity that makes it great hospitality,” Konetzki tells Observer. He sees today’s dining room as a mixture of people chasing novelty and people hoping to be comforted, sometimes within the same guest. Reading that mood matters whether the recommendation involves a rare vintage or a pot of tea. Tea, in fact, excites him. “Soak me, brew me, strain me, brew me again,” he says. Its origin and processing offer much of the fascination he finds in wine, with preparation adding another set of decisions. Tea, he says, can stand in for wine or a cocktail, and any wine sommelier should know how to serve it.
During his work at Mei Ume , the Chinese and Japanese restaurant in London’s Four Seasons hotel at Ten Trinity Square, Konetzki and his team selected tea and sake, Japan’s fermented rice drink, alongside wine for the 2022 cherry blossom menu. He recalls using tea’s bitterness to refresh the palate and sake’s savory character to heighten flavor. His sake list began with what a wine drinker would need explained to enjoy it. He believes sommeliers should also taste the water they serve, particularly alongside delicate raw fish or vegetables, where its influence may be easier to notice than at a grill restaurant. A water specialist should be able to demonstrate how the choice improves dinner; he says he has yet to meet one who has convinced him.
Charles Craig —who now goes by Charles 5.0—is a water sommelier who leads comparative tastings and founded World Water Imports . He says he completed water sommelier training at Doemens Academy in Germany in March 2015, spending several thousand dollars on his education, including travel and lodging. He learned how geology shapes mineral composition, then how to recognize and explain the resulting differences in taste and mouthfeel. Doemens’ current course spans 10 days, with sensory training and four written and practical exams. Doemens describes the work as advising on water selection, developing water lists and presenting the drinks to guests. Its October 2026 course costs €3,150 (about $3,525).
Craig applies his training to explaining differences in mineral content, carbonation and mouthfeel. For a comparative tasting, Craig proposes moving from American mineral waters such as Cedar Mountain to Lithuania’s Vytautas. Cedar Mountain reports 290 milligrams per liter of total dissolved solids, a measure of what the water holds in solution; Vytautas’s manufacturer lists about 7,300. Craig uses that contrast to broaden a drinker’s idea of water rather than declare one bottle superior. “I want them saying, ‘I had no idea water could taste like all of this,’” he tells Observer. In a blind taste test published in the Journal of Wine Economics, more than 100 drinkers did only slightly better than chance at telling bottled waters apart, and some preferred ordinary tap water to any of them. Recognizing a difference and preferring it are separate judgments.
For one water -tasting demonstration, Craig describes serving Jameson Irish whiskey alongside separate glasses of tap and mineral water . Tasters sip each water before the whiskey, then again after, noting how it shifts the spirit and its finish. For coffee and tea, he prepares one version with tap water and another with mineral water . “In my experience, people consistently prefer the version made with mineral water ,” he says—the water an ingredient easily forgotten in the fuss over a prized leaf or bean.
Craig is building a business around that proposition. Through World Water Imports, Craig says he plans to expand mineral- water distribution in early 2027, including reusable delivery and serving systems. He is also collaborating with water educator Pat Eckert and Colors of Water Academy as part of a broader effort to advance water education and tasting internationally.
Knowing when a guest wants that comparison is part of the expertise. Konetzki can see a mineral- water tasting being revelatory for one diner and boring for another who came for bolder flavors. He expects an explanation to arrive with a beautifully prepared drink, at the right temperature and in the right vessel. “Your excellence needs to be delivered to the table,” he says. The specialist worth the title leaves a guest better equipped to choose, whether that means brewing a tea they had given up on or recognizing differences between waters without assuming the most mineralized bottle is best. The certificate tells you which program someone completed; the recommendation shows what they can do with it. Konetzki’s Champagne drinker wanted generosity, not a lesson in precise measures. Whatever appears on the business card, the expertise should make the drink and the experience better.