Creme Earl Grey

Yet another tea provided by Mercuryhime. Thanks for sharing some awesome teas!

This tea is no exception. It has a well-executed bergamot flavor with a wonderful creamy component added to it. I’m not 100% sure how long I steeped it for because I set my timer for 4 minutes but then didn’t hear it go off. It doesn’t taste oversteeped though, and there’s only a slight bitterness. Nothing unmanageable.

I added milk and sugar and wow! Now it’s ultra creamy and delicious! I can’t believe I’m the first one to rate this tea. If you’re a lover of Earl Grey, you need to check this out immediately! The only reason I’m rating this in the 70s is because Earl Grey has never been one of my favorites. But I do still enjoy it, and this is one of the better EGs I’ve tried.

Very yummy and calming as I try to play Skyrim, which is continuing to freeze repeatedly even after patch 1.5 that was supposed to fix this problem for good. Screw Bethesda. They really suck. How could they release a broken game? It’s so frustrating! The latest patch has only made the freezing worse. It’s literally unplayable now.

Element Tea included this is a sample in my recent (first, last, and never again) order from them. Sad they are going out of business, but yay for cheap tea. I ordered three real teas, and you would think I’d try them first, but nope. When I saw this was an included sample, I got really excited, because I almost bought this, but didn’t.

I’ve been searching for a tolerable Earl Grey…. and this is not it, unfortunately. I steeped this for 3 minutes with boiling water, and at first I thought it was too bitter… until I realized it was just very citrus-y. Almost like a grapefruit peel. Ick. I think that’s the Oil of Bergamot coming in that I’m not a big fan of. I was hoping to taste some creaminess, but all I get is that citrus taste. Not good :( .. It does have an interesting smell to it.

I decided to cut this with some skim milk, and in doing so, it’s a lot better. BUT, I still want a tea that I can drink straight, so having to put milk in it to make it tolerable shouldn’t really be necessary. I don’t mind a tea where the milk enhances the flavor, but no point in buying a tea that I can only drink under certain conditions if there are others I can drink straight- right?

Second infusion at 3 minutes: Brewed this again at 3 minutes, and the second infusion is not nearly as strong – which is good. It tastes less citrus-y and more like black tea. I just think I’m not a big Earl Grey fan, and may never be. How sad :(

First tea I’m trying from tea box B, I really should also get back started on box A now that I think about it! This one though has very few teas I don’t want to try.

I thought this might be something good for having this morning, plus I wanted to try making a EG cream without over steeping it.

At first sip this was almost terrifyingly bergamot tasting. Since I had to make a ton of bread last night and we got whole milk for the purpose, there’s still a cup left so I added a little to the cup and now it’s a lot more tolerable.

I think this one is just a bit too strong for me, I like Earl Grey but some of them just are way too much flavor for me. It actually feels like the vanilla is increasing the strength of the bergamot oil! The milk did kind of smooth it out, and it is definitely creamy tasting, but the way it switches over to this strong citrus note is a bit too much for me.

I bought this with a bunch of other teas from the Element sale thinking it would be the ONE tea I didn’t like of the bunch. But it turns out, it’s my favorite from the bunch and I’ve tried most of them! (The other stand out was ‘Mojito’.) I’ve had bad experiences with yuck Earl Greys in the past, but that may be they were not very good teas to start with (I don’t remember what they were but they were tea bags in a popular find-them-at-the-grocery-store brand.) But I think the creme makes all the difference! I love the cremey smooth flavor and I probably wouldn’t like it as much without it — the bergamot/citrusy flavor just doesn’t appeal to me but the creme makes it so so good. I think the citrusy aspect isn’t that strong anyway. I received some of Teavana’s Earl Grey Creme in a package that iheartteas sent me, so it will be nice to have a Battle of the Creme Earl Greys! Up until now, I just assumed that Earl Grey was one of the rare teas I didn’t like, but Earl Grey Creme suddenly became a favorite! Yikes.