Earl Grey

Im not a tea nerd, but I do like black tea, every day. My husband got me this tea loose leaf for my birthday, and ive been choking it down with a fake smile on my face ever since. It tastes like chemicals, or rancid oil, or something else unpalatable. The bag inside the tin is covered in orange coloured grease. Ive experimented with steeping times, tried fishing out the cornflowers, water temps. Its no good and not worth buying. In my opinion. Maybe you like horridly bitter flavours, or maybe this batch went bad. Im open to that, but im never going to purchace this overly expensive tea again.

A mild Earl Grey (although I might have underbrewed a bit), not as bitter as some. The bergemot flavor is subtle at first but becomes more apparent after the tea cools slightly. The “single steeps” packet had whole cornflowers mixed in which I’ve never seen before. Usually they’re just bits of petals. The serving size was also quite generous and I only needed half for my mug.

Is this a great tea? I don’t really know – Earl Greys depend so much on brewing time, mood, etc that I can’t really rank them without a direct comparison, which I’ve never actually done. But I’ll certainly be bringing a packets of this to the office for morning tea emergencies.

Used the tea bag version of this from the sampler I was given.

I’m smelling black tea and bergamot. :)

The taste is pretty much black tea, without much spice from the bergamot. This isn’t bad, but it’s nothing special. I don’t know if it’s the brand, or the tea bag vs. loose tea (I do tend to like the teabags themselves), but I much prefer the Star Trek Earl Grey from ThinkGeek (maybe it’s the fact that it has lavender in it, though I’ve been told that makes it a Lady Grey. Or the fact that I can see the lavender and bergamot flowers in it).

For bagged Earl Grey, I think it tasted pretty good, although it is a rather expensive teabag.
I like my Earl Grey tea bold, so I don’t mind Assam in the blend. I like a pungent bergamot taste in my Earl Grey too. So this is totally my cup of tea. Pun intended ;P

Trying to log from memory, when I had this tea about a year or two ago.
Nothing remarkable, but not unpleasant.
Reminded me of….bread. In a good but kind of weird way. Definitely something I’d have at breakfast.

Dog sitting thjs weekend, which means checking out my sisters tea collection. She isn’t as much of a tea fanatic as I am, but she does have the Tea Forte and Tazo box collections, so all is not lost.

The first up is Tea Forte’s Earl Grey. Here we go:

I am a fan of Earl Grey. As a Star Trek fan, I loved when Picard ordered his Tea, Earl Grey, hot. I have had good and great Earl Greys, bad ones, boring ones and overdone ones.

So far, this one is good, but dangerously close to being overdone. The aroma is good, with that classic fresh, fruity, refreshing smell, but on the subtle side. The initial taste is memorable Earl Grey. Warm, welcoming, refreshing, with that fruity, slightly earthy, complex taste and feel. This one has a hint of smoke as well. The secondary taste is where the problem is. Spice? Really? A spiced Earl Grey? So American. I guess I just don’t like spiced teas.

This is definitely a step above the average mass produced Earl Grey, but not the best I’ve had. The complexity works against the basic flavor, like they tried too hard to make it interesting instead of just making it good. There is something extra in here, something unnessesary, something adding more of a spice taste. Without it, whatever it is, I would like this much more.

I personally didn’t like this tea, heavy on the bergamot. I handed it off to a friend of mine, who loves it.

This is a nice earl grey, nothing special. It’s slightly malty, slightly citrusy, and a nice medium base, with no complexity that I could detect.

I love this tea. A reliable perfect cup every time I’ve tried it. Usually I put in two tea bags to achieve the bitterness I’m craving, but this brand in it of itself does great.

I still at a capful of lemon juice to bring out the bergamot, and it is quite stunning.

The price is devastating, however.

Possibly the worst tea I’ve ever had. It tastes like (cheap, gross) cologne, or maybe wood polish. Or a mix of the two. All I got was that gross faux-citrus; I couldn’t even really taste the base. I love Earl Greys and I’m usually all for strong bergamot flavor, but here it was so heavy and artificial, almost musky. There’s no way I would’ve even recognized this tea as an Earl Grey by taste if I hadn’t know what it was.

I found this tea bag lying around a relative’s house and have no idea how old it might be, so there is that. Still, I see other mentions of cologne-like flavor, so I don’t think it’s just that the tea has gone off.