A veritable gem in the your favourite colour

Sandra Burghardt, a tea sommelier from Bedburg in the Rhineland, has very refined taste.

Thanks to the cooperation between CABINET and Farrow & Ball, cabinets can now be painted in any of the 132 highly pigmented paints offered by the British premium supplier. That way, you can either make a conscious decision to use striking, intensive colours or have your cabinet painted in muted, subtle colours so that it fits the room design perfectly. Regarding her new sideboard from CABINET, Sandra Burghardt opted for the latter in order to create a harmonious atmosphere.

Designed with love and attention to detail

No CABINET is like any other. However, what truly makes each CABINET unique is the possibility to choose from a virtually unlimited array of colours - meaning that the Burghardt family was able to find exactly the right solution to suit their very special taste.

How exactly do you become a tea sommelier? “It’s not straightforward“, explains Sandra Burghardt, who worked as a communication and media scientist at the University of Leipzig before starting her own family. Since 2008, the mother of two children has been working at her husband’s pharmacy located in Bergheim in the Rhineland. At the beginning, it took her a bit of time to get used to the new and unfamiliar environment. In a small chamber dedicated to tea, adjacent to the pharmacy’s main room, Sandra Burghardt finally found herself a job that she enjoyed more than accounting: “There are about 200 different medicinal herbs in the shelves here, which can be drunk as tea or used for hip baths”, she explains. “Herbology is an ancient art which only few people master nowadays. In Cologne, there is a whole range of pharmacies that send their customers to us - which means that they have to travel a considerable distance of approximately 40 km.”

 

New passion

In order to be able to answer all of her customer’s questions, she received training to become an expert on medicinal herbs. Very quickly, Sandra Burghardt developed a true passion for the small, dried leaves, whose infusion has healing effects or a truly delicious taste, depending on the plant and how it is processed. Little by little, she has been expanding the range of teas, also including high-quality orthodox teas, especially from Japan and China. In 2012, she eventually completed a training course to become a tea sommelier. However, there’s still a lot she wants to learn: “I would really like travelling to the countries where the tea is cultivated to take a look at each individual step of the production process on site”, she says.

Boldness in colour

Considering how the range of products continued to grow, it was only fitting that the design of the pharmacy should be upgraded, too. Never having shied away from bold choices of colour, Sandra and Marcel Burghardt came across Farrow & Ball, the English manufacturer of highly pigmented premium wall paints and wall papers. Farrow & Ball’s retailers are known for providing comprehensive expert advice on colours, which pleasantly surprised the Burghardts: “We were expecting a clinical environment. However, in the end, the colours were light and subtle and have truly upgraded the design of our rooms.”

When Sandra Burghardt eventually learned about the cooperation between CABINET and Farrow & Ball, she decided to also use the special colours for her home - on the walls as well as a new sideboard. She had the latter custom-built by CABINET for her selection of precious items relating to tea, including Asian tea sets, tools for making tea, and even some unusual things such as crumpets and tea blossoms.

Inner values

The highlight of her cabinet is its colour: It perfectly matches the colour of the wall behind it. In view of the interior of the room, which combines design classics such as the Wishbone Chair designed in 1949 and antiquities made of different types of wood, the new piece of furniture is soothing to the eye and provides some pleasant calmness thanks to its unimposing appearance.

 

However, what does make this piece of furniture stand out is its interior: The tea sommelier is especially thrilled by the uppermost drawer, in whose glass compartments her objects are showcased like little, precious pieces of jewellery, such that she can enjoy them again and again each time she opens the doors of the cabinet.

“As a result of the expert advice we received, we have chosen subtle colours with which we have significantly improved our room design.”

Sandra Burghardt
Tea sommelier from Bedburg