JOBS & CAREERS SPRING 2018 - 242

Professional tea taster

Tea can have as many different flavour notes as wine, and to recognise them you
need a trained and sensitive palate. Climate, topography, manufacturing and
different varieties of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, can produce vastly differing
flavours in the final product. A taster's job is to seek out the right leaves to create
blends that match existing products and to help develop new ones. An
experienced taster can travel the world, from India to Argentina.
What skills and qualifications do I need? A background in botany or science
is useful but not crucial. It takes about five years' training to develop your palate
to enable you to accurately identify flavours in each blend.
How much can I earn? New recruits make about £25,000 a year.

Laughter therapist

We're not joking. If you've always
wanted to be a stand-up but don't
fancy going on stage, you can use your
comedy skills to help people overcome
stress. When we laugh, our bodies
produce endorphins, which help us
relax. It doesn't even have to be a real
laugh - a fake laugh works just as well.
Laughter therapists hold one-toone or group sessions, and get people
warmed up with a few fake laughs,
before encouraging real laughs too.
What qualifications do I need? There's
a variety of courses on offer, including
online training. Some courses are only
open to those with a health or wellbeing
qualification, such as yoga teachers.
A good sense of humour helps!
How much can I earn? You're
likely to be self-employed so you
can set your own hourly rate. With
experience this could be around £60
an hour for individual sessions.



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JOBS & CAREERS SPRING 2018

http://europe.nxtbook.com/emp/Careers/jcspring2018
https://europe.nxtbook.com/emp/Careers/JobsandCareersAutumn2017
https://europe.nxtbook.com/emp/Careers/YourBusinessWithJamesCaan2017
http://europe.nxtbook.com/emp/Careers/Careers/Careers_with_Hayley_Taylor_2011
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