Sally's Secret

I love the aroma this tea produces while steeping. It smells like walking into a high end spa. The rose is fragrant and mixes nicely with the bergamot. The bergamot surprisingly doesn’t take on any over the top floral notes, it plays nicely in the background. The rose is a beautiful rose. I enjoy sipping on rose teas when I need a nice relaxing “me” break. This tea definitely provides that relaxing metaphorical sigh of relief my body needs. Ahhhhh.

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.

Trying this blend for the first time. It is so good. A remarkable blending of flavors – the rose and the bergamot compliment each other very well.

The black tea is delicious – brisk, not bitter, and very little astringency. The rose and the bergamot are in lovely harmony here, with the sweetness of the rose softening the bergamot just so, and the bergamot enhancing the qualities of the rose. I like this very much.

Yay! Harney and Sons samples came in today! I think at this point I have hyped Florence up so much in my head that there is no way that it can ever live up to it, so I’m putting off trying it for now. (maybe later on today, although I have to admit, ever since figuring out how to properly make 52 teas’ coconut cream pie, I’ve been kind of craving it)

The idea of adding rosebuds to Earl Gray appeals to me a great deal, it seems that, like with Earl Grey Blue Flower, it would add another dimension to the Earl Gray that would allow me to indulge in my favorite tea but with some variation. Now I associate rose with a pretty strong scent and flavor, but this tea seems to be lacking both. Perhaps it’s just that I’m eating curry and this tea is too delicate for it, but I am not really getting ANYTHING out of it except an odd spiciness.

As it cools, I start to get both aroma and flavor, so perhaps I was just being too impatient. At the moment, it is being a pretty standard earl grey – although the spiciness is making me suspicious that there is secretly lavender inside. There IS something else there, but I can’t quite pin it down. Is it fruity? Is it floral? Is it both? Is it neither? Dunno!

The tea grows on me as I drink it, but the flavor continues to be a coy little bugger. My mum wanted to know if it was any good since she’s also been looking for some variations on the theme of Earl Gray, but right now I don’t know what to tell her. I’m glad the sample has enough for several cups!

Next time hopefully I’ll remember to try and make this stronger.

This is a tea that I was dying to try. I love Earl Grey, I love rose, what’s not to like? So I got a sample pack from Harney and tried it… and I didn’t like it at all. This was before I figured out that if I put 2 tsp instead of 1.5 tsp in my 12 oz Kati cup, Harney black teas taste way bitter to me no matter how long the steep. This time, with my proper brewing parameters, it’s much better. There’s still a hint of bitterness (I think I might drop the temp on my Harney blacks and see if that takes care of it) and astringency, but now I can actually taste the rose and it seems to play well with the bergamot, but I don’t get a lot of citrusy bergamot from this one. Overall a decent tea, but not my favorite Earl Grey blend. There are some Harney teas that I love love love, but I’m finding there are others (like this one) where the black tea base just isn’t right for me. Oh well, I guess rose and Earl Grey is one of those combos I will be looking for in other places.

This is a very aromatic tea both dry and wet. The rose and bergamot combine to form a rather unique and fruitful partnership, something I had considered to be a potential issue when I was introduced to this blend. One does not need a heaping scoop to get the full flavor and strength from this tea, and as such my supply has lasted quite some time. I find this to be a very refreshing iced tea in the summer, needing nothing else than ice and a pitcher. I am not fond of adding sugar to this tea, as it distorts the intriguing flavor combination.

This is certainly a strong tea – I’d recommend it as a few times a week treat, surrounded by something of lighter body.

This one is interesting….Earl Grey with rose. There is the light taste of the bergamot and definitely faint rose. Overall, it kind of adds a slight twinge. I can’t really describe it any other way….it cuts the sweetness and maltiness of the black tea base. It is definitely enjoyable in a purifying, spa kind of way. Not a favorite, but good.

I am willing to swap an ounce of this as I have three……off to add it to the swap thread.

This was a smooth, lovely tea. I drank it sans additions and I would like to try it again with a little sugar, and perhaps some milk. It was milder than I thought it would be. The bergamot is not as strong as in most Earl Greys, and I tasted less rose than I thought I would. I think I need to increase the leaves and try it with additions. It wasn’t bad, it was a very nice tea but it didn’t have enough presence to make me seek it out again. The tea is lovely with the pink petals, though, and I hope that my next cup will be a little more stellar when I make the changes….Everyone liked it, but it didn’t draw ooh’s and ah’s.

I will begin by saying that Earl Grey is by far my favorite flavored tea, coming in near second would be black teas flavoured with rose petals, so I was expecting to really love this tea.

I was right. It is very, very good. The aroma of the dry leaves, as well as the aroma of the liquor was very “earl grey” . The actual flavor of the tea is not so much earl grey, but a lighter, with subtle rose hints.