As I literally said just tonight, I love getting to taste all the different ways tea companies twist and play with the established expectations surrounding classic tea blends, like Earl Grey. So when AJ shared this was one of their newer blends it IMMEDIATELY went on my to purchase list!
After I had unpacked on Friday morning, this ended up being the first tea from my large trip haul that I steeped up – the curiosity was too strong, and an EG on a Friday morning was just speaking to me conceptually. Yuzu is really interesting to me as an addition to EG for a few reasons – it’s been a pretty trendy flavour the last few years as part of a wave of Asian inspired flavours becoming more popular within North America. This is in tandem to many other trends, like a drive towards citrusy or tropical notes as people both clamour for global escapism post pandemic and seek out tastes that convey “happiness” through their brightness or acidity. Though I think Yuzu, in particular, is sort of cresting in the trend curve right now…
So for all of those reasons, it’s neat to see a more ‘Asian flavour’ with this modern trend backing it up coupled with something so classic and grounded in British tea drinking culture. Then, from a culinary side, it just makes a world of sense to me that these two citruses (Yuzu and Bergamot) would work so well together as both are highly aromatic with a lot of essential oil pay off and such depth to their floral yet zesty kind of profiles. True to my expectations, it does work reaaaallllyyyy well side by side. The citrus is lively on the palate but grounded due to those denser (and, in the case of the yuzu, almost peppery) and somewhat pithy notes. Still, there’s brightness to the top of each sip that keeps the cup from feeling sullen.
I’ve also tried AJ’s Royal Grey, which I like a lot too, but this one takes the cake for me. I just thought it was so impressively well balanced while really honoring both of these main flavours. Murchie’s is one of those companies that could probably put out a dozen EG teas in a year without their core customer base growing tired of them, so I’m really intrigued to see whatever spin on an EG AJ comes up with next!
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There’s something very “grounding” about Earl Grey variations. You could make a very wild mix of interesting flavours and have it seem just a little too ‘out there’ to work, but if you tack ‘Grey’ on the end, it brings it more down to earth; it’s suddenly ‘comfortable and familiar, but with a modern twist’.
Bergamot in general I feel rounds out other fruit flavours well. I call it a very ‘bassy’ citrus.
There’s something very “grounding” about Earl Grey variations. You could make a very wild mix of interesting flavours and have it seem just a little too ‘out there’ to work, but if you tack ‘Grey’ on the end, it brings it more down to earth; it’s suddenly ‘comfortable and familiar, but with a modern twist’.
Bergamot in general I feel rounds out other fruit flavours well. I call it a very ‘bassy’ citrus.