I love Earl Grey tea and most assorted variations of it. Something about the citrusy bergamot serves to wake me up in the morning and soothe me in the evening after a day of work. This is the first green tea Earl Grey that I have tried, and I have to say I like it!
The scent of this tea from the bag is very strong and it’s all ORANGE orange ORANGE. You can smell the orange peel and orange fruit and maybe a slight hint of muskiness from the green tea leaves. After brewing the scent tones down a bit, making it more similar to typical Earl Greys. The color from this tea is not very strong, it looks like any old green tea (pardon me while green tea enthusiasts cough and beg to differ). The taste of the tea is amazingly like Earl Grey. If someone handed me a cup blind, I would proclaim it delicious and request they steep it slightly longer because it is missing the black tea undertones. The green tea leaves act as a carrier for all the orangey bergamot, you cannot taste the green tea at all – and yet the taste is different than if one had simply stuck a couple orange peels or drops of bergamot oil into a teapot of water. The green tea gives it body, but goes completely undetected. The ingredient list mentions cornflowers, which you can kind of see in the loose tea, but I don’t taste them at all. Granted, I don’t really know what they’re supposed to taste like.
The second steeping was just as good as the first, but by the third it started to lose flavor. All in all, delicious! It won’t replace my staple black tea Earl Greys, but it’s a nice addition to my collection. I believe it has less caffeine than my black teas, which could come in handy.
