Earl Grey Cupcake

Well, my huge order for the month showed up today and, Surprise Surprise, this is the first tea I reached for! We’ve established that I am keen on trying all the earl grey I can, so when I saw this one, I had to get a few pouches!

Ok, so smell in the pouch… well, it’s very sweet. You can smell the sweetness just in the pouch! However, there’s something very strange about it. The combination of flavors – the bergamot, the sprinkles, the vanilla – it all combines to what I swear smells like licorice! I have no idea why, but all those elements combined, that’s what it smells of.

Upon tasting it without sweetener, I’m happy to say it doesn’t translate into the flavor. Instead, you get a subtle sweetness, combined with the usual floral flavor of the earl grey. It isn’t bitter at all, which is a plus. However, you all know I love my sweets, so here we go Splenda!

So, here’s the thing. When you add sweetener, on the first cup, you do get that licorice combination. But, despite the fact that I hate licorice, it is perfectly pleasing. It’s like… the essence of licorice, without the full pungent flavor. It’s really really pleasant! It does taste like a cupcake, and I love it!

However, with subsequent steepings (I’m on my third now), the licorice/cupcake disappears and it just turns into a simple earl grey. The floral sticks around, as does the vanilla, leaving a nice earl grey cream flavor that I love so much! It’s soft and smooth, and thankfully, the bergamot doesn’t overpower the vanilla and vice versa. Just a lovely cuppa!

So I can heartily recommend this. Don’t be turned off by my “licorice” commentary. I am pretty sure there is no actual licorice in it, and the flavor, as I said, lacks any sign of the pungant-ness that I hate about licorice. Instead, it’s just pure cupcake sweetness all around, which turns into a gentle cup of earl grey cream as you steep it out.

Good stuff. Can recommend.

One of the best earl grey I’ve ever had. Nice bold bergamot flavor, with a subtle cakey note. I’ll definitely be trying this with cream and sugar next go around.

So, my countdown is all messed up by now and at this point, since it’s Christmas day, it’s a bit unnecessary. So a big thank you to all those who kept up with the countdown! :) This is the Eleventh tea in the 12 Teas of Christmas box, and I just grabbed this one because I was looking for a caffeinated pick-me-up after the holiday dinner and dessert and this was the first one I grabbed.

Not that I’m complaining – I’m loving this. I love bergamot and since I do love it, I can usually handle a strong bergamot flavor but I also like this where the bergamot is subdued because of the vanilla notes and the cake-y flavors. Very tasty and a nice way to regroup after the holiday happenings.

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday and that you’re staying warm and cozy with a hot cuppa!

#adventageddon Day Twenty Three – 1/6

I don’t think I’ve had this EG blend before but I do recognize it as a returning tea blend because I remember how crazy people were about it when Anne first blended it. Because of that, I’m not surprised to see it got the votes to be included…

I made my cup this morning with some milk because my mother was VERY curious about this blend, and she only takes her tea with milk. I’m enjoying the mug more than I expected to – and that’s solely because I’m not a massive fan of bergamot flavours. I really need bergamot comboed with another flavour to be enjoyable – thankfully that’s what’s happening here! This is a bit of a medium bodied bergamot, but it’s also got a creamy vanilla note to it that is making it more smooth and gentle. The milk I think is really helping it along as well.

Mom likes it too.

So, overall this isn’t a thing I’d pick out for myself but I definitely wont have an issue finishing off the sample!

NEEDED to have this again. So good. Just feeling so poorly. I’m now on a medically reduced work schedule but still need to work 3 days a week, which feels like 1 too many but that’s what I got. This tea is getting me through the day. Like a hug in a cup.

This is divine. And in the perfect world, I would have another huge bag or two of this left, rather than the few crumbs that I have remaining.

Another example of tea and its hard hard lessons in non attachment.

Super fab version of an Earl Grey Cream with a soft vanilla orange slant. Well, my pouch of this will disappear quickly. It’s nice to have the creamy vanilla aspect after a few days of drinking a more heavily bergamot Earl.

It’s really difficult to not sound like a shill for 52teas. Anne’s creations rarely disappoint me.

Trick or Treat! So my Halloween Wheel o’ Tea has selected this for my treat bag today, and I’m pretty happy since Earl Grey is a nice breakfast staple. Mmm… Earl Grey cupcakes! The dry leaf has a lovely bergamot aroma, but I smell a lot of sweet vanilla too, and it does smell a little like cake frosting (particularly the cream cheese cake frosting which is my favorite). I’m also loving all those pretty golden tipped tea leaves I’m seeing in the blend… Yunnan and Vietnam blacks are pretty much my favorites, so I’m expecting the base on this to be downright delightful.

I had a tiny bit of vanilla almond milk left that I wanted to use up before the carton went bad, so I ended up making a large latte, and then emptying my overflow tea into a separate cup, so I had half a cup of plain tea leftover, so I got to try the tea plain and as a latte from the 16 oz. brew I whipped up. The aroma from the spent leaves and brewed cup had a surprisingly somewhat floral note to me; the bergamot wasn’t coming off as strongly in aroma as it was on the dry leaf, and the sweetness somehow just smelled like a fresh-cut bouquet to me. The flavor still had a perky bergamot taste, with that being the promanent note in the cup, with a sweet vanilla and subtle cream note coming out toward the finish. The base tea was indeed quite smooth; I didn’t notice any astringency from this cuppa.

The latte invoked a much stronger “cupcake” element; I had a very small amount of vanilla almond milk in the cup, but it was just enough to bring out more sweetness and creaminess, emphasize the vanilla, and temper the bergamot a bit, and the result did come out feeling creamy and cakey. The smoothness of the base make this an Earl Grey I’d have no problems drinking plain, but I just found the profile a little nicer taken London Fog style.

Sipdown (248)

I sipped on this while working on my project with my friend. I asked if she would like tea and she said sure so then I asked what kind? She asked if I had caffeinated tea
so I suggested a plain black tea because it seemed like the flavors scared her. So I pulled out my drawer of black teas and was going through the plain options when she mentioned flavors so then I started naming some flavors and she got very excited about Bonfire Toffee. I was going to have that with her but after I made hers there was only enough left for an 8 ounce cup and I wanted more caffeine than that. That’s when this caught my eye.

This tea has been awesome and it will be missed. Earl grey and I are not usually friends but this always delivered. Cakey. Vanilla. Earl Grey. All balanced to perfection. Thank you Sil for sharing.

I snagged a sample of this when I saw that Anne had brought back the old LiberTEAS Breakfast In Bed blend. Couldn’t just let that go by! But this tea was calling my name, too. Couldn’t resist the combination of two of my favorite things — earl grey and cake. Somehow, after years of orders from 52Teas, this is my first earl grey of theirs ever.

I’m charmed by the cute blue and white star sprinkles mixed in. Same colors as the blue cornflowers that have come to signify an earl grey. However, at first, I wasn’t sold on the bergamot they used. It smelled kind of like sunscreen to me, so I was wary.

But the flavor was much different than expected! It reminds me so much of a creamcicle! The bergamot is so smooth and citrusy. It tastes like a vanilla cupcake with orange marmalade icing. Also, the black tea base they used is hearty and solid. I can actually taste it over the added flavors. I always appreciate that 52Teas doesn’t use lame, low grade Ceylons to make their flavored teas. They use nice black teas and let them lend their notes to the flavor.

Anyway, this is lovely and I’ll be having it again at breakfast.