Earl Gray Tea
I love Earl Gray Tea. I really haven’t met one I didn’t like! I wondered if anyone has ever tried making it? Or if there is one out there that is particularly exceptional? I’ve had the basic Twinings, Bigelow, etc..
There are lots of Earls that are worlds away from the bagged varieties you mention! I love Earl Greys and bergamot and I’ve tried a lot of different ones (though not nearly as many as LiberTEAs!). I even did a side by side tasting several months ago of a bunch of varieties that I had around.
My favorites so far are Todd & Holland’s Earl Grey Double Bergamot (if you really love bergamot!) and Joy’s Teaspoon’s Earl Grey. I also really enjoy two leaves and a bud’s Organic Earl Grey, which you should be able to find in sachets in a grocery store like Whole Foods. A lot of people also really like Harney & Sons’ Earl Grey Supreme, but that one isn’t nearly bergamotty enough for me.
Good luck on your Earl Grey journey! Everyone’s tastes for this tea seem to be different, so my best advice is try to sample as many different ones as you can to figure out which one is right for you!
When I flavored/blended teas (I closed my business a couple of years ago), I did make an Earl Grey Creme. Earl Grey is a very difficult flavor to blend because it requires a couple of things: the right bergamot flavoring and the perfect – precision amount of flavoring. The first I could handle because I had a very good flavoring oil that I used, however, the precision part got me. That’s why I never released a straight up Earl Grey, I could never quite get the flavor to the point that made me happy. I was able to perfect (at least, for me) the Earl Grey Creme flavor, but, not the Earl Grey. After a couple of years of not getting it right, I finally gave up and left it to those who could do it right and stuck to my Earl Grey Creme.
I LOVE Earl Grey, but, not all are created equal and I’ve had some that were really bad. Really bad. But, as Dinosara states, everyone’s tastes are different and everyone’s palate responds differently to the same tea.
Here are my top 3: Earl Grey from thepuriTea, Earl Grey from Lupicia (Lupicia has several varieties of Earl Grey, my favorite is the “Earl Grey” not the Earl Grey Breakfast or other variations of the name from Lupicia), and Lord Bergamot from Steven Smith Teamaker. Honorable mention goes to the Earl Grey from Andrews and Dunham Damn Fine Tea.
A bit off-topic, but I’ll try to make Genmaicha in following days (toasting brown rice that is).
I love Vanilla Cream Earl Grey from California Tea House. It’s delightful! Very creamy!
One of my favourite Earl Greys is DavidsTea’s Countess of Seville. Its a green tea with bergamot and orange, and its a beautiful twist on the original. I find that you do have to be quite particular with your brewing and flavouring though, as the green base (sencha) can be a bit finicky. I think this one might be a bit hard to make yourself, but an easy one to do would be a vanilla earl grey, as suggested by others. Its just adding vanilla to earl grey, and it gives it a beautiful natural creaminess that you never knew was missing.
I am not an earl grey fan (apart from lady grey, which is a different thing), but a few hardcore earl grey fans I know seem to love particularly well ordinary run of the mill Ahmad´s Earl Grey.
Wow, so many to try…I have never had the vanilla or orange..I am really curious about the orange. I can imagine the vanilla giving it a creaminess. I like that idea. I make a tea I call English Rose, and I use roses in it. But I don’t want people who are not used to tasting rose, feel like they are drinking perfume so I added some sarsaparilla root to it which gives it a creaminess. That’s what I imagine the vanilla doing for the Earl Gray.
Now I think I must go make a cup of tea…. ( :
Alrighty, so don’t bash me for being unrefined or whatnot, but what makes Earl Grey different from Lady Grey? How are the tastes different and what are the different ingredients in them?
Earl Grey is the “original” from which Lady Grey was derived. Earl Grey is – tradionally – a black tea that has been flavored with the essence of the bergamot orange.
Lady Grey is a spin-off of the classic Earl Grey. There are a couple of different varieties of Lady Grey. The Twinings variety uses Seville Oranges, Bergamot, and lemon. Other Lady Grey varieties (from other companies) may use the traditional Earl Grey and add lavender. There may be some other Lady Grey varieties out there, these are the two with which I am most familiar.
I think only Twinings can call stuff Lady Grey, they have the trademark. I have seen other companies call it that, but not sure if it is really quite legal. Lady Grey, just one, the twinings one.
And just to add to what Libertea said, twinings also adds some cornflowers to their loose leaf Lady Grey. Lady grey is bergamot , a bit less IMO than the earl, lemon and orange. The cornflowers, I think, add texture. And that is it.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I’ll probably go buy some Twinings when I move into my new apartment, seeing as I currently only have enough room to keep tea bagged together in zip locks.
Mighty Leaf Organic Earl Grey….My Best hands down…next would be David’sTEA earl Grey, Earl’s Garden [with berriy fruit in it…saweet!] , Twinnings Lady GREY absolute, and wehn there is change in my pocket – Tim Horton’s Earl Grey…but really, you pay your buck you’ll get your bergamot bang!
I had one from Republic of Teas called Earl Greyer and I loved it. I must say there aren’t many EG’s I like so this was a surprise to me. :)
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