__Morgana__

Another TeaFrog sample, since I’m on an Assam kick this morning.

Fascinating. In the sample packet, the tea smells fruity! Like cherry or some kind of berry flavor. Not quite as tippy looking as the Teavana or the Teas Etc., but still quite pretty.

The steeped aroma has a hint of fruit too, which was unexpected, but nice. It’s got a smooth, slightly sweet character. I’m now more convinced than ever that the Teavana Assam Gold Rain’s bakiness was an aberration in flavor. It must have been the batch I had.

It brews a little darker than the Teas Etc. Assam Reserve, and leans more toward medium bodied. It’s not particularly sweet, and I don’t get maltiness (as I think of maltiness), but there’s something very nice about it. It’s just a good solid black tea, without anything at all offensive about it, but without much to distinguish it either.

Saying goodbye to this out of my bagged starter teas today. It was a good one, but I have since had better gunpowder and I expect there are even better ones out there than I have had. That said I wouldn’t be disappointed (at least for now, early in my gunpowder drinking career) drinking this if I found myself needing a quick, convenient gunpowder.

It does better steeped for 2 minutes at 175 rather than the shorter steeping time I usually use for bagged greens (1:30). It doesn’t turn bitter, but it does gain a deeper and sweeter flavor.

Looks more like Assam Gold Rain (very tippy and pretty) than Thomas Sampson does, but smells more like Thomas in the dry leaf. Rabs mentioned potting soil, and I get that as well, though it’s drier and leafier than potting soil (which right out of the bag tends to be pretty moist). That was a good sign, as the yeasty smell of the ASR dry leaf was replicated in its taste and was a flavor I didn’t love.

The tea’s aroma is even more promising. It doesn’t have the yeasty (bakey?) flat note that the ASR had. I’m starting to wonder if I just got a bad batch of ASR. Maybe. In any case, the Assam Reserve has more depth to the aroma, and it has a sweetness. I’m not getting malt as I think of it, but there is a natural planty sugar to it. The liquor was lighter than I expected, a medium amber.

The taste is much smoother than the ASR, which had a sharpness to it that I didn’t find pleasing. It’s somewhat astringent, and it has that sweetness that I found in the aroma. It’s not sweet enough to be malty or biscuity as I think of those terms, but it does have that sort of sweetness you get when you’ve eaten a non-sweet baked product (like pretzel, cracker or plain bread) and let it sit on your tongue for a while so that it starts to break down into sugar in your mouth.

I’d like to try this next to Thomas Sampson. I know I like it better than the ASR by a lot, but I don’t have a gustatory memory of Thomas to compare it to.

Decupboarding this one this morning after using the last bit for my wake-up tea. Tried it at 200F for 3:30. Tasted a little better but still had that yeasty thing going on. Not terribly sorry to see it go, except that it was serving me well as an addition to chai and now I have to decide on another black to take up that mantle.

Knocking it down a few points now that I’ve compared it to Thomas Sampson.

I’MMMMM OONNNNN FIIIIRRRRREEEE! But it hurts sooooo good! Lol.

First off, let me say that I made this on the stovetop using the same method I’ve been using for all chai lately, and whoa — this stuff is so spicy that the usual stovetop method most assuredly overdoes the amount of chai because of the strength of the cayenne. I’m thinking half what I put in would likely have done the job.

Second, let me say that though I obviously need to work on the ratios, I think the stovetop is definitely the way to go with this. I haven’t tried it otherwise, but I really don’t have any desire to because the chewiness of the milk makes it taste like hot cocoa duking it out with chai in my cup, with tabasco thrown in to complicate matters.

The fragrance of the mixture in the package seems deceptively mild, until after a little bit your eyes start watering. It smells like chocolate/ginger/pepper and quite nommy. It’s also quite pretty — there are huge sliced almonds in the mixture and tiny little red spheres of pepper.

After cooking, it smells like a very peppery, gingery chai. And wow, that’s exactly what it tastes like. Before this, the Rishi Masala chai was the spiciest chai I’d had, and this is much spicier than that. It’s very tasty, once you get over the shock of how spicy it is.

The only downside, really, is that in the end, the spice seems to win the fight with the chocolate. So while I can taste the chocolate around the edges, I wish I could taste it more front and center. Perhaps changing up how I prepare this will get me closer to a deeper chocolatey taste.

I love spicy stuff, though the older I get the less I can tolerate comfortably. Though I could easily have had this every day twenty years ago, now it’s likely to be the sort of thing I’ll have to pay for later ;-) so I’ll have to factor that in to when and how I partake of this.

But whoa, what fun!

This is another of my TeaFrog samples from a previous Steepster Select. I’ve got some chai on the stove and thought I’d give this a try while it’s working.

What are “crackle bits”? (Do I want to know? ;-)) Whatever they are, they must be what is responsible for the fragrance of the dry mixture actually smelling like tiramisu. Uncannily so. The chocolate and cocoa alone wouldn’t do that. The rooibos in this mix is red, but I can barely smell it in the sample packet. Will my luck hold?

Alas, after steeping, I can smell the rooibos, primarily. The accurate tiramisu smell has been diluted. And unfortunately for me, since I like my rooibos to be virtually silent, I can taste the rooibos in this blend. It’s not bad for red rooibos, but I much prefer rooibos as a backdrop for other flavors to play on rather than as a flavor unto itself.

There is a suggestion of tiramisu in the taste, but oh, if it had only tasted exactly like the smell of the dry mixture! As it is, the rooibos is too prominent in the flavor of this tisane for my taste.

Those who like rooibos in their rooibos and a suggestion of flavor in their flavored rooibos rather than rooibos as a vehicle to make something that tastes not at all like rooibos would probably like this. If they can follow that last sentence…

Another of my TeaFrog samples from a previous Steepster Select.

I’ve been running around all day: kids swimming lessons, my workout, my haircut, younger kid’s friend’s birthday party, and finally got home. I’m really tired, but somehow it seems a little pathetic to go to bed at 7 p.m. So I thought I’d try some black tea to wake me up a little.

In the sample bag, the tea smells delicious. It’s a sweet chocolate smell, a milky chocolate. I was thinking chocolate liqueur, and then I realized it’s pretty similar to the smell of chocolate syrup. I can see chocolate chips in among the dark brown leaves.

After it steeps, the aroma becomes less sweet and less intense, and takes on more of a chocolate baked goods quality. The liquor is lighter in color than I’d expected. It’s a sort of bronze color.

Yum. Tastes like…. chocolate! It’s very chocolatey. More chocolate than tea, by a lot. It’s interesting because it’s like drinking a grown up version of hot chocolate, by which I mean hot chocolate stripped down to its essence. No milkiness, no creaminess, no frothiness, no chewiness, but a lot of the same essential comfort flavor of warm chocolate without all of these. It’s kind of surprising.

As for the cream, I don’t taste it independently, but I understand it. It’s the difference between a baking chocolate flavor, and a sweetened chocolate flavor. It’s as though the chocolate here has been sweetened with lactose, though I can’t taste a cream flavor. The tea itself shows up more in the aftertaste than elsewhere; it has a sweet, mild flavor that goes well with the chocolate.

Most of the chocolate teas I’ve had have other flavors in them as well. This may be the first solo chocolate I’ve had, and it will be a good benchmark as it seems to be a solid, standard sweet chocolate flavored tea.

Apropos of nothing in particular, whenever I read A&D’s full company name, I immediately think of Laraine Newman holding up a glass and saying, “Wow, that’s terrific bass!” I expect I’m the only weirdo who makes this association and I have no idea why.

Anyway, after venturing into Assam land with the Teavana Assam Gold Rain, I decided I couldn’t go farther without a visit with the legendary, incomparable Thomas Sampson. I’m always up for a challenge, so the mere fact that he’s incomparable isn’t going to stand in my way. I’m going to compare him to Assam Gold Rain just for grins.

First off, Thomas doesn’t seem to be as tippy. Though there are clearly lighter colored tips in among the leaves, the ratio of dark to light isn’t nearly as high as it is in the ASR. Thomas’ dry leaves smell better to me, though. Their smell isn’t as strong. It’s lower key, and deeper, and gives the impression of being fresher for some reason? Which is weird because I think I’ve had it longer. In any case, there’s a big difference between the way the dry leaves smell.

Thomas steeped, though, does remind me of the ASR’s aroma. It’s that anti-malty, yeasty smell, which I’m coming to realize (through a trend of two) is what Assams smell like.

But wait. How can something that smells so similar taste so different? There was something about the ASR’s taste that just plain rubbed me the wrong way. It was the yeasty thing, and it seemed sort of off to me.

Thomas, thankfully, doesn’t have that same characteristic. There’s a sweetness to Thomas that is closer to a true maltiness, and a smoothness. The ASR has a harshness that grates on me. It sits right under my sinuses and feels like it’s making the tasting equivalent of a screeching noise, like fingernails on a blackboard or a rake across cement. Thomas doesn’t even hint at harsh, at least until the swallow when he gets a little fresh and does a grab thing to my throat going down about a third of the time. But I forgive him that for what he makes up in flavor.

I’m amazed at how much more I like this than the ASR. I will give the ASR one more try on a lower temp setting before relegating it to black tea duty for chai.

Let’s end with a little of the ol’ modus ponens for those of you taking logic this semester: If Thomas is what a good Assam tastes like, then I like Assam. Thomas is what a good Assam tastes like. Therefore, I like Assam.

I have to leave it to others better versed than I am to verify the truth of the first premise, but my guess is yes. Now. What else tastes similar to Thomas? Given his limited edition status, I already have to start to worry about that.

I’ve gone my whole life without fig flavored tea, and now I’m having two back to back. This was yet another of the teas I’m sharing with the Dammann Freres buying co-op thanks to the efforts of Doulton, hereinafter referred to as “Fig 2.”

The dry leaves of this one have a deeper and somewhat musky smell, and there is more going on than mere fig, though the fig contribution to the fragrance is every bit as fresh and juicy smelling as it was in Figue Fraiche. I can smell a citrus note (must be the clementine) and I can smell something bake-spicy which must be the nutmeg.

The tea’s aroma is muskier as well. The citrus moderates the fig some, and makes it seem more earthy. Fig 2 is more fig pastry-like than fresh or baked fig, which was Fig 1’s domain, but still quite nice.

I can definitely taste the Yunnan’s contribution here; it brings a full-bodied depth to the tea and gives it a malty, carmelized sweetness with a bit of astringency. The flavors blend well with it, and don’t hide behind it, but it is an interactive base rather than a passive one. The flavors swirl around in it so that sometimes they are the stronger flavor, and sometimes the tea base itself is, which makes it an interesting, mercurial drink.

I’m enjoying it quite a bit.

Another from the Doulton-organized Dammann Freres shopping spree.

Wow. The dry leaves smell like fresh figs! Fresh juicy figs, not the drying and overly sweetened stuff that goes into Newtons (although I have to admit I have a weakness for that as well). It’s amazing.

The tea’s aroma, if anything, makes the figgy smell sweeter. It’s warmth makes the figs seem baked, but doesn’t change the fundamental character of freshness that I’m getting. Fresh baked is still pretty fresh. The tea has a really nice biscuity quality, with some floral notes as well.

The figs aren’t as present in the taste as they are in the aroma, but they’re still there, and they have a fresh, fruity aspect to them. It’s a deeper, rounder fig flavor than I expected, again much more reminiscent of the fruit itself than of anything made with it.

I haven’t had figs in tea before (at least knowingly) and it’s a pretty unique taste. But one I can totally get behind.

I could tell as soon as I sniffed the dry mixture that it would be much less tart than the Hawaii Cocktail. The berries provide a lot of natural sweetness, which is evident in the fragrance of the dry mixture.

It makes a bright red liquor after steeping, and indeed, it is much less tart than the Hawaii Cocktail and not at all bitter. I mostly taste strawberry, and behind it apple. It doesn’t require sweetening primarily because of the strawberry, though it isn’t particularly sweet-tasting.

A much happier second encounter with my TeaFrog samples, though I’m not presently in the market for a primarily strawberry flavored tisane.

In honor of the recently expired Steepster Select in which I didn’t participate this time around, I’m breaking out one of my samples from the last TeaFrog Steepster Select (which explains why I didn’t participate this time, I still had all the samples from last time intact until a few minutes ago).

I wish that I had tried a different sample for my first TeaFrog venture as this one and I didn’t get along very well.

Initially, I thought it was going to be similar to Tazo Passion, Teavana Caribbean Breeze and The O Dor Je M’appelle Dorothee. It’s a pretty, chunky, blend with a lot of dark red and brown tones, and some lighter neutral colors that appear to be the tropical fruit. I could smell the hibiscus in the dry blend, but the main fragrance I got was currants, followed by the tropical fruit, primarily pineapple. So far so good.

On steeping it turned that beautiful dark red color that these other three tisanes share, but after that things took a different turn. Toward the extremely tart. I could smell the tartness in the aroma of the blend after steeping, and on tasting it was confirmed. Very tart, and slightly bitter around the edges (it stays with in the aftertaste and I’m thinking it is at least partially from the orange peel). Not what I generally prefer in a fruit blend as I like ’em sweet.

I put a bit of sweetener in to see how that would change things, and while it did sweeten up and bring out the fruit flavors more, it didn’t do much to turn around the bitter note.

So sadly, my first try was not a success. I have a lot of other samples, though, so I’m hopeful!

Made on the stovetop per the Samovar extra black tea recipe with Teavana Assam Gold Rain as the extra black tea.

The dry mixture smells mostly of cinnamon with a touch of ginger.

Not as spicy as the Rishi and not as rich as the Samovar, but a tasty, mild blend. It reminds me of the Golden Moon Kashmiri Chai in terms of flavor, but I prefer the GM. On the continuum of very spicy to less spicy, this is less spicy than the Golden Moon, which I already found to be pretty mild. There is pepper listed among the ingredients, but I wasn’t at all aware of its presence.

I’d probably choose another blend over this one for my staple milder chai, but I wouldn’t at all mind drinking this if it were offered to me.

This one called to me today, along with the Caramel-Toffee, another from the marvelous Dammann Freres buying group Doulton organized.

The chocolate in the dry mixture has a somewhat less intense nose than does Florence, which is what this seems to be asking to be compared to out of my recent tasting experience. They’re both chocolate and nut mixes, though different nuts and Charlotte has some flowers added as well. While the chocolate in Florence has a deep, dark smell, this one has a lighter, more milky smell to it. I can smell the almond, too. It is also a less intense fragrance than the hazelnut of Florence.

Although I feared that steeping might dilute these more delicate fragrances too much, the tea’s aroma is quite nommy. The fragrance of the tea has filled in any gaps that might have needed filling. It’s a deeper aroma now, chocolate and tea, with a very high floral note and a slightly less high almond note.

I don’t think this is as chocolately as Florence, or as nutty. But that’s ok. This has what, for lack of a better phrase, I keep referring to as that “black tea French blend thing.” It’s very obviously tea, a smooth, deep, tasty black tea, with a sweet, chocolatey taste at the tail of the sip and an almond overlay that sits over the taste from beginning to end. The fact that the chocolate is a less intense part of the flavor profile makes it possible to enjoy this without evening thinking about adding milk.

It’s definitely yum, but it’s not so much a Florence alternative as it is something that can peacefully coexist in a chocolate/nut/tea lover’s cupboard along with Florence.

Tomorrow is my son’s birthday and I although I took the day off of work, I was scurrying around pretty much all day making preparations and it was every bit as stressful as going into the office. I considered taking a nap when I got home, but instead, it appears I will be drinking tea.

I got some cool little tea storage cans, and I decided that ritually transferring my Dammann Freres teas that Doulton so lovingly packed up after our buying fandango into these little tins would give me a great opportunity to sniff all of them and decide what one to taste next. I had to peel her labels off and stick them onto the tins (this one has a lion on it, my totem animal or at least one of them) because they’re so adorable. Anyway, this one called to me. It has an amazing, amazing smell coming out of the dry leaves. It’s a thick, rich, caramel that you can almost see melted and dripping over ice cream. Yum!

The aroma of the tea has a milder caramel smell, and the tea’s own rich, dreamy aroma comes out as well. Rich is a word I think I’ll be using a lot here. Just a warning.

I love the way this tastes. It’s… rich. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. It’s deep. It’s a seamless blend with the tea. It’s smooth. It has that French black tea blend thing going on that makes you want to take a spoon to the leaves. They seem as though they’d melt on your tongue like mousse. (Though I wouldn’t try this at home, or anywhere for that matter.)

A good, comforting choice to punctuate a hectic day before the hectic evening picking up kids, getting them fed, getting homework done, etc. starts.

This is a tea of the month for April on the Classic plan. Unlike the other April TOMs, I have been drinking this one. I’ve had it plain, I’ve had it as the black tea added to stovetop chai. I just haven’t written a note about it.

I like the way it looks — it’s a salt (or maybe light cinnamon) and pepper kind of look with the tippy tan highlighting the dark brown. Distinguished. A touch of not really grey. Grateful Dead stuck in your head now, anyone? Guilty.

The dry leaves have a woody smell with a little damp canvas mixed in, that reminds me of waking up early at a camp site. I get a fair amount of the same from the tea’s aroma, though there’s a mysterious fruity undercurrent.

The difficulty I’m having with this (and other Assams, though I’ve only had them in blends) is there’s an aspect to them that I don’t find easy to love. It’s hard for me to describe, though I suspect the aspect that grates on me is what you’re supposed to love if you love Assams. I’ve read about it being described as malty, but it isn’t what I think of as maltiness. Malty to me is sweet, like the flavor inside malted milk balls. This isn’t sweet. I guess I’d call it more yeasty than malty, there’s something vaguely bready about it. It’s very bold, and to me it often comes across as pretty harsh.

Today I’m having this for breakfast with milk and some sweetener and that makes a huge difference. Perhaps, coming from India, this was a style of tea that was developed for the British milk and sugar palate? It certainly stands up to both. The yeasty flavor is still there, but it doesn’t grab the back of my throat with the additives.

I’m just not sure solo Assam is for me, but as I said, this is really my first attempt. I’ve had it in blends, but not straight up before. So I’m trying to keep an open mind.

I’m trying this side by side with Tazo Passion just for fun. I’m trying them without sweetening first.

For starters, the colors of the steeped tisanes are nearly identical. They might even be identical, but I didn’t attempt to assure that they were exactly the same in terms of dry mix to water ratio. I made the Caribbean Breeze in the Breville, the Passion is in a sachet so I just poured boiling water over it and steeped 5 minutes.

The aroma of the Caribbean Breeze is sweeter and more berry like. The Passion is more hibiscusy in aroma.

The Passion has that unsweetened black cherry juice taste, for sure. The Caribbean Breeze is in fact quite similar tasting. It is sweeter, though, with a strawberry leaning taste. To put this in synesthetic terms, the Passion tastes lower than the Caribbean Breeze. If Caribbean Breeze starts at middle C, Passion starts at bass C.

With sweetening the strawberry-leaning note in the Caribbean Breeze becomes more pronounced. But I’m finding it hard to argue with my initial impression, that apart from that strawberry in the mix, the two are very similar. I think Passion may have a slightly more interesting taste than Caribbean Breeze, but not enough to quibble over.

This was a tea of the month selection for April on the Classic plan. I was afraid of it, which is why it has taken me until halfway through May to get around to trying it.

I fear this tea for three reasons. First, it is a flavored green. My track record with those is well nigh abysmal. Second, has red rooibos in it, which I hope doesn’t mean it actually shows up in the taste (why would one add rooibos to a flavored green tea? filler?). Third, it is both a green tea and a rooibos, which means it falls between steep times and temps, which always makes the experience dicey.

At least it doesn’t appear they’ve changed the blend. The ingredients are the same. (Carrot bits? Huh?) I’m treating it as a green tea for steeping purposes at least for the first try.

Looking at the dry mix it is hard to tell what kind of green tea this is because its interspersed with a humongous amount of other stuff. It might be sencha, as it has a long and spear-like look. I can’t see any rooibos at all, which worries me. It makes me wonder whether as the smallest and finest ingredient, it has migrated to the bottom of the tin and the last few cups of this will be nothing but rooibos. It’s pretty: lots of big, long, colorful flower petals that look a little like ribbon, and chunks of dried fruit. It smells like dried fruit and raisins. (Yes, I realize raisins are dried fruit. My point is that the raisins are providing their own aspect of the smell separate from the rest of the dried fruit.)

The tea is a light yellow color and smells like white wine. Seriously. Like a chardonnay, only fruitier.

And it rather tastes like wine, too. Or at least, about a third of its taste is wine. Another third or so is a sweeter tropical fruit taste (mostly peach/papaya) that is apparent mainly in the finish and aftertaste. And the last third is the green tea, which is mild and fairly sweet. Not bitter. And I can’t really taste rooibos except maybe as part of the fruity after effect.

This is a weird little tea. It really isn’t bad as flavored greens go, in fact it’s surprisingly ok in that regard. It has a lot of different things going on. I just can’t imagine it being something I’d find myself thinking, “you know, I really want some of that” about.

If Florence had me tap dancing down memory lane, you don’t want to get me started on Paris. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But the worst of times part was hardly the city’s fault. I think I’ve been to Paris about four times in my life. Two of those times it was fairly late spring, and both times it snowed. Something I think about every now and then as I really don’t associate Paris with snow. But I digress.

Whatever I’m smelling in the sample packet, fortunately, it isn’t reminding me of cough syrup. From the dry leaves I am getting the following, though I have no idea whether it is what I’m supposed to get: vanilla, citrus, other fruit, something spicy. The vanilla is hanging tough in the steeped aroma, along with the fruit.

I’d expected something Earl Greyish, as bergamot is an ingredient, but this isn’t Earl Greyish in the least. In fact, if I didn’t know it was there, I wouldn’t recognize the bergamot.

There’s a high lemony note, but the rest is just a really interesting blend of fruit flavors in which nothing jumps out to me on a first try. I can get a berry note if I try hard, but it’s not at all overt.

I haven’t fallen head over heels for this one, at least not yet. I like it, but I find it a little too confusing at the moment. It could surprise me, though. It could be like that guy you thought for the longest time was just ok, and then one day you wake up and realize he’s more than just ok and the world is going to end right that minute if he doesn’t love you back.

ETA: The berry is really starting to come out as the tea cools. Like I said, this one might just sneak up on me…

I’m a sucker for anything roses, and the idea of rose + Earl Grey seemed interesting to me. It works with lavender so why not rose?

The roses sure make the tea look pretty. :-) The contrast between the dark tea and the pinky/red rose petals is lovely. It reminds me a little of a fancy dress for a little girl, dark velvet with tiny pink rosettes.

I don’t smell rose in the sample pouch, though. This makes me wonder whether that means the rose is decorative only? I just finished trying the Upton Earl Grey Blue Flower where that was true, so I suppose it is possible. I do smell bergamot in the dry tea, and I do smell something else, but I can’t identify it.

I think I may be getting some rose fragrance in the aroma of the tea, but perhaps it is just wishful thinking. The bergamot isn’t at all strong. The tea smells mild and slightly sweet.

As I drink, I get a rose note in the aroma. It isn’t very strong at all, but it is pretty. It is harder to identify in the taste, but I do believe it is there around the edges of the sip. I had expected it to be stronger, but now I’m thinking maybe the reason it isn’t is because it wouldn’t work that way? When I tease out the rose in the aroma and the flavor, I can also get a hint of how easy it would be for a stronger rose to overpower everything else at work in this tea, and how having to increase the bergamot would lead to escalating the rose flavor and so on until the end result was mutual assured destruction.

So it’s subtle. But I think it is because it has to be, not because of a failing in the blend. As with the Upton Chocolate Earl Grey, I really like the idea of this tea. The question I need to answer for myself is whether for my own palate it’s too subtle to be worth it, and I’m not ready to answer that yet. Even as I write this, I’m tasting the rose a little more as the tea cools, and the more I taste it, the more the answer leans toward yes.

The fourth and last of the Upton Earl Grey sampler samples. This one has more bergamot smell in the can than the others; it smells the most like an Earl Grey in its dry state. Steeped, the bergamot aroma lessens but is still obvious and easily identifiable.

The description seems to indicate that the flowers are just for decoration, so that must mean this is the Earl Greyest of the Earl Greys in the sample. No other flavors added.

Indeed, that is my impression of the taste. In this, there’s a very discernible bergamot aroma and flavor, moreso than in the other three samples. It’s not too strong, nor is it too mild for me. It’s just right, said Goldilocks. The bergamot is citrusy, not perfumey. It doesn’t do a number on my stomach.

I’d like to taste it next to the Harney & Son’s, but it seems to me to be in the running for my staple Earl Grey.

Tea no. 3 in the Upton Earl Grey sampler. It’s called Earl Grey Chocolate on the sampler label but has the same catalog number as Chocolate Earl Grey.

I’ve been looking forward to this, as I am at least a 200 on a scale of 1-10 in terms of chocolate fanaticism.

I must admit to being somewhat baffled by the all the variations on the Earl Grey theme. Seems to me at some point it ceases to be Earl Grey and starts being something else, but perhaps I’m just old school. Of all the variations, this is the most puzzling to me so far. But that’s probably only because I haven’t come across marzipan-halvah-cookies-’n-cream-melba-toast-pineapple-lime-spaghetti-mutton flavored Earl Grey yet.

This is a very colorful, pretty blend: yellow, green, blue, tan and brown/black. I love anything with cornflowers in it as that shade of blue is so calming and beautiful. It smells strongly of cocoa, and the cocoa has a mint-like lilt to it which defies explanation by the ingredients. The undercurrent of the tea, by contrast, smells almost coffee-like. I am getting nothing in the bergamot or lemon department.

But after steeping, there is both lemon and bergamot in the aroma, along with unsweetened cocoa (that still has that interesting minty-upswing). The taste is very strongly of the cocoa. As with the creme vanilla variety, the bergamot’s role seems mostly to be to corral the cocoa to some extent. The lemon actually seems to be the stronger citrus note here, and seems to be helping the bergamot with the task of keeping the cocoa from turning this into a single note tea. Interestingly, the bergamot hopped onto my tongue a few minutes after my last sip and sat there for about a minute before scurrying away.

Fortunately I have more of this so I can play with it some. Right now I’m in that place where I like the idea of this tea more than I probably like the tea itself. But the idea is so interesting, I really want it to knock my socks off. Right now it’s not doing that; it’s not striking me as that much different from a pretty standard chocolate flavored tea. I’m wondering if steeping 4 minutes would make a difference. Perhaps milk and sweetener would as well.

That said, I haven’t tried any other Chocolate Earl Greys, so there isn’t one I’d choose instead of this. Nor can I say this is signficantly better than any others. It’s either this one or nothing for me right now, and for that reason I’m giving it a default very good rating.

Ah. There we go. This is the first in the series of Earl Greys in the Upton sampler. In my zeal to taste the lavender one, I didn’t see the little number that indicates this is the first in the group.

In the can, this smells like vanilla, then tea. The vanilla isn’t a pure, beany vanilla smell. It’s more the ice creamy/cream soda variety of vanilla, which makes sense given the word “creme” in the name. It does make me wonder whether anyone has done a pure vanilla Earl. (Note to self to be on the lookout.) Thinking back on it, I’ve mostly seen Earl Grey cremes, with or without the word vanilla included. I can smell a citrus note toward the end, which is where the bergamot seems to be hiding.

The tea’s aroma is very pleasing, creamy and citrusy, with an undercurrent of sweet black tea. I think I’m already noticing a trend here in the Upton Earls, which is that the bergamot and whatever else is flavoring the tea sit above the tea base as a foundation more than interacting with it.

V. nice flavor. Much better than the only other Earl Grey Creme I have had, which was by The Necessiteas. The bergamot is not strong at all, perhaps not even strong enough, though it does give a citrus accent to the creme that keeps the creme from running away with the tea completely. The primary flavor is the creme vanilla sitting on top of the tea.

I think I will try this at four minutes next time and see what that does to the flavor.

Updated to add the number of this tea in Upton’s catalog as I was confused initially. In the Upton Earl Grey sampler it is named “Organic Earl Grey Lavender” but it has the same catalog number as Lavender Earl Grey (which also has a mark showing it is organic). So mystery solved, at least to my satisfaction.

This blend smells great dry. I love the smell of lavender, and that is the main thing I smell. It’s a deep, full lavender smell, which may be somewhat intensified by citrus. But I don’t smell bergamot here, or tea, really, for that matter. The addition of water tones down the lavender in the aroma, and seems to bring out a mild citrus note and a sweet black tea one.

The flavor is very nice, not too strong on the bergamot (which is how I like it) and the lavender is nicely balanced. The tea base is mild and unobtrusive.

It’s something I’d definitely drink again, though given the choice of a single Lavender Earl Grey, I’d pick the Samovar. The main reason is the tea base. The Samovar’s is delicious with a lot of character and depth. It’s far more present, but not in a distracting way; the lavender and bergamot are still clearly there. The Samovar is built more like a three-legged stool, where each of the three main components is equally important to the flavor. In the Upton the tea plays more of a foundation role, and the stars are two non-tea flavorings.

I just noticed that this was labeled no. 2 in the Upton Earl Grey sampler. Eeek, I’d better backtrack and taste no. 1!