We all like to think we make a decent cup of tea, but do you go to quite the same lengths as our lot?

In the sales room, our tea buyers taste up to a thousand teas each day, to sift through the samples and get a sense of where the best teas are coming from. To make sure this is done properly, each one has to be precision-brewed. But some of you have asked: what does that mean exactly?

To find out we spoke to Adrian, one of our tea sales room team. (It's his birthday today too, so what better time for him to pop up on the blog?) Together with Mo, Neil, Helen, Katie and Damien they ensure all the tea samples are lined up ready to taste, on time, every time.

Adrian explains that first, a small amount of the dry tea leaf is displayed on the counter for inspection. Meanwhile, exactly 5.6g of tea is weighed out and put into a special cup, which is then filled with freshly drawn and boiled water. A quick stir and then the lid goes on for exactly 5 and a half minutes.

It's worth noting that's effectively double-strength, so this is some serious flavour we're talking about. They do it this way because it amplifies any good or bad qualities in the tea, which really helps our buyers when tasting.

Also, although our tap water is soft, we have a regular delivery of hard water to brew with as well - soft water can often disguise imperfections in tea, so we like to taste samples in hard water too.

When the timer goes off, the special cups are tipped to one side so the 'liquor' can pour through a serrated space, filtering out the leaves. Once this is done, the leaves are tipped into the lid and displayed upright for another level of inspection.

The last step is adding milk, which is done using a soup spoon to make sure the amount is always the same. After that, it's over to our buyers to start slurping!