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Lavender Earl Grey from Tea District
20

The handle of the steeping basket of my Kati cup just broke off! Boo! Getting that thing out of the cup now requires a knife and hot fingers. :P

I really loved the sample I got of this tea before; the lavender and the Earl Grey were in a good balance, and the addition of the jasmine really rounded the whole thing out. I ran out a while ago but it was always on my list, so I ordered 2oz of it with my last Tea District order.

Upon opening the package I was a little concerned. This didn’t really smell like the tea I had before! The dry leaf smells very very lavendery, in a very herbaceous way, but there’s also a lot of other things going on in there that I can’t quite place (but don’t really smell like just bergamot and jasmine!). The brewed tea is similar: lavender, yes, but also almost spicy?

Um, what?? This is horrible!! WTF is this?? This is totally not the delicious Lavender EG I had before. It’s bitter and kind of like a spicy lavender, but overall just terrible to me. Like they mixed in a chai base instead of an Earl Grey. There is no hint of bergamot whatsoever. What on earth happened?!

ETA: I have sent this package of Lavender Earl Grey back to Tea District for replacement by another tea. They claim that there could be no error as far as the blend goes, so I’m going to have to remove my previously high rating of this tea.

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Comments

Dinosara
Dinosara 2011-07-18 18:51:58 -0400

Contacted Tea District about this. They claim it couldn’t be an error, but all the same they have a guarantee and they said they would take the tea back and send me a different tea if I wanted. Guess I’ll be getting 2oz of the Magnolia Oolong instead!

LongLiveEarlGrey
LongLiveEarlGrey 2011-11-24 01:16:32 -0500

I wholeheartedly agree with your penultimate paragraph. This tea was dreadful. It tasted more like licorice than bergamot or lavender. I could hardly get it down. I knew something was wrong when I took a whiff of the dry leaf. I’ll have to take them up on their guarantee because this most definitely was not a pleasure to drink. Thumbs down on this one.

Dinosara
Dinosara 2011-11-24 11:23:14 -0500

I was so disappointed because the sample I got of this tea was delicious. I don’t know what happened! But yes, this was horrible in the current blend. They are good about their return policy, although I don’t know how they can claim there is nothing wrong with this blend.

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Profile

Bio

I am tea obsessed, with the stash to match. I tend to really enjoy green oolongs, Chinese blacks, and flavored teas with high quality bases, especially florals, bergamot-based teas, and chocolate teas.

I’m a grad student and in my free time I am a birder, baker, and music/movie/tv addict.

I have an Adagio Teas UtiliTEA kettle and a Tea Forté Kati cup for brewing. I also have a Chinese Ru Kiln tea set for gongfu brewing.

Here are my rating categories, FYI:
100-90: These teas are mind-blowingly good to me.
89-80: I really really like these teas and will keep most of them in the permanent collection, but they’re not quite as spectacular as the top category
79-70: Tasty teas that I enjoy, but definitely won’t rebuy when I run out.
69-65: Teas that I would probably drink again, but wouldn’t seek out. They don’t quite do it for me in one aspect or another; often just not quite my style
64-60: Teas that I don’t really enjoy all that much and wouldn’t drink another cup of.
59-50: Bleh. I usually choose not to finish the cup because life’s too short to drink tea I dislike.
49 and below: Mega yuck. This tea is just disgusting to me.

Location

Ohio, US

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