I don’t want to jinx it, but Steepster is finally loading a bit faster for me today after two days of painful slowness. Crossing my fingers it keeps it up.
Yet another sample from the lovely SimplyJenW! I am excited to try this because two of my favorite flavors are bergamot and rose, and I love Teas Etc.‘s Rosy Earl Grey sooo much. I am currently out of that one, so I hope this one helps fill that gap (since I know it takes me forever to get through samples). In the bag I didn’t get a much rose aroma from the dry leaf and it smelled like a fairly standard Earl. Steeped, there’s definitely something going on here in the aroma but I can’t tell what. I don’t get a distinct rose smell, but maybe it’s hiding behind the bergamot? There is an almost floral note, I just don’t really identify it as rose.
At first while still hot this tea didn’t seem to offer a lot to me. The flavors were surprisingly weak, and mostly an decent but not great bergamot. As it cools, definitely more is coming out. I do get a burst of rose right at the beginning of the sip, which is joined and replaced by a bright, bright, fairly citrusy bergamot, though it lacks those sweetish lower notes you can get sometimes. The Keemun base is in there rounding things out and it tastes pretty good, but I don’t think it’s quite as nice as the Keemun base on the Lupicia Earl.
Overall I get kind of a general decent-but-not-great vibe from thsi tea. I didn’t actually get much rose flavor in my cup despite other tasting notes saying they did get a lot of rose, so I don’t know what’s going on there. It’s tasty enough but I vastly prefer Teas Etc.’s Rosy Earl Grey, which actually also includes jasmine as well. Glad I got to try this one though.
I agree that I like the Teas Etc. version better, too!