Professional Tea Sommelier Diploma

The Professional Tea Sommelier Diploma marks the culmination of your structured tea education. As the highest-level UKTA award, it challenges you to bring together your learning from both the Tea Sommelier Award and the World Tea Diploma in an independent final project that demonstrates your leadership, insight and originality.

This is not a taught course. Instead, you design and deliver a substantial, self-directed project that showcases your professional fluency in tea. Whether your project involves writing, presentation, service innovation or another applied approach, it should reflect your ability to communicate, apply, or advance tea knowledge in a real-world, professional context. You will be supported by a mentor and assessed by a UKTA assessor, with moderation by OCN London.

The Professional Tea Sommelier Diploma includes:

• Independent Final Project
• Project proposal process and structured feedback
• UKTA Mentor support
• A dedicated UKTA Assessor
• OCN London External Moderator

Independent Project Learning

The Final Project would be expected to take around 40 – 60 hours. You will need to submit a piece of work that may take the form of written work, service design, storytelling, video, a live online presentation, new training materials or another applied format.

Assessment

Your Final Project is assessed by a UKTA assessor and externally moderated by OCN London. Clear assessment criteria are provided in advance so you know what success looks like.

Achievement

You will receive the Open College Network London Professional Tea Sommelier Diploma Certificate. You will also receive OCN London digital badges for each unit you have successfully completed. This qualification confirms your achievement at Level 5 and your readiness to lead, design, innovate or educate in the tea profession.

Qualification

The Professional Tea Sommelier Diploma is a certified qualification, accredited and externally moderated by Open College Network London (OCN), a regulated awarding body with international status.

Progression

This is UKTA’s highest practical award. If you want to explore an advanced research-based route with the UKTA, then the Specialist Tea Diploma is your next challenge.