Earl Grey

Yet another tea that I cannot believe is not in my cupboard and I’ve never logged. =P The general overview is that this is a solid enjoyable Earl Grey with a black tea based that gets too strong and bitter for my tastes if steeped much over three minutes.

Yesterday morning, I steeped it 30 seconds over that with the intention of making a London Fog and wanting the tea a bit strong to counter the addition of some milk. But when I went to make it, I discovered I had no vanilla. =( It’s on the grocery list now. And the Earl Grey with still quite nice with just a splash of milk.

2nd steep: 7 mins.
Early afternoon. No milk.

One of my teeth broke in half yesterday, probably caused by many years of chewing pens while working. I always rationalized that it was a safer habit than smoking cigarettes. Apparently the pen chewing addiction has its own repercussions (besides accidentally swallowed pen caps and the occasional mouthful of exploded ink).

Anyhow, I am anxiously, without access to pain pills, awaiting my high noon dentist appointment today to get my broken tooth fixed. However, my dedication to tea tasting (when I have new teas to taste) is greater than the pain in my mouth at the moment. So, I took one for the Steepster Team and prepared this Harney & Sons tea for testing.

When I opened the tin, a strong bergamot scent became instantly recognized. The tea inside was short and brown, like particles from a damp pile of raked Fall leaves.

I brewed the tea for five minutes at 212 degrees as recommended. I was struck by the absence of bergamot aroma in the brewed beverage. The color was a dark golden brown.

When I took my first sip, the next thing that was obvious (besides the stabbing pain in my damaged tooth), was the extreme understatement of bergamot flavor in this selection. The flavor is nice, smooth, and like that of an English Breakfast tea. However, the Earl Grey component is well hidden. In fact, I detected more bergamot in the aftertaste than in each cautiously directed sip (to the opposite side of my mouth from the screaming tooth).

All in all, this is a smooth and tasty tea with no bitterness. If you can take or leave Earl Grey, or you like the fruity flavor of bergamot in small doses, this tea may be quite satisfying. But, if you like bergamot to be the overpowering ingredient in this variety, you may feel short-changed.

I picked up a little of this at Millerton to see how it compares to Earl Grey Supreme and Viennese Earl Grey. I do like it. It is a very good Earl Grey, but I think I like the other two just a little more as they both have something more interesting to offer in the tea base. The bergamot is light, and the tea base is pleasing to the palate. Since I am not one for an overpowering bergamot flavor, I will happily drink it all up.

24 oz teapot, 4 1/2 tsp actual tea, freshly boiled water, 4 minutes. Lightly sweetened.

Accidentally oversteeped this, so I tried it with milk again. It’s standing up to it a little better, but the milk is still killing a lot of the flavor.

There is something about conferences that just puts me to sleep in the afternoon, even if I haven’t been up really late the night before. I went on the search for a cup of tea in the vast maze that is the Paris Las Vegas hotel and found a takeaway coffee stand. The Paris seems to use Harney tea bags, because they also had them at the coffee service this morning for the conference. Normally I would be glad about Harney teas, but these are tea bags, not even sachets, and I don’t really like Harney’s Earl Greys anyway. Oh well. Like the Supreme, this is very lightly bergamotty tea that takes most of its flavor from it’s base, which in this case is pretty smooth but not my favorite blend. But it’s drinkable, and I’d still take it over the bags many other hotels provide.

Story Time: School is still going pretty well, even though I don’t have a lot of time to make tea like I did over the summer. meh… I am kinda mad that one of my graphic design classes is a dud. The teacher doesn’t really know what he is doing./rages\ At least the other ones are good.

Tea Time: I have had this sample from Azzrian for a while, but kept forgetting to post a note about it.
The smell of this is your typical nice and true EC smell…hmmm. The liquor is more of a brownish color then red; and smells like a typical EC. This one is defiantly more of a light EC flavor. It does have a sort of odd sour aftertaste. Overall it is a good simple Earl Grey. Not spectacular, but good and simple.

Overall I would recommend this to someone who likes lighter Earl Greys.

P.S. This song has been stuck in my head lately for some reason. At least I know got around to buying the album…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPyUXb2QwDM&feature=g-vrec

P.S.2: Thanks Azzrian for the sample
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Specifics
Water: 28 ounces
Pot: Glass
Leaf: 3 tsp
Sweetener: almost 1 tbsp for a 10 oz mug

I brewed this in my Sorapot that just arrived today, and I think it tastes better than it usually does :-)

I will always have a soft spot for this flavor, since it was the first hot tea I remember drinking. Can’t compare it to other Earl Grey teas, but this is a tea I enjoy having on hand. I really love it.

Also had this at a recent meeting in tea-bag form, they had a few Harney & Sons options. I love earl grey and this was did not dissatisfy. Bc I just left the tea bag in the cup while sitting in meetings it wasn’t a spectacularly controlled cup of deliciousness, but I’m sure it can be.

A very solid Earl Grey. The dry tea had a very nice, strong aroma. I steeped it for about 3 minutes and drank it plain without sugar or milk. The flavor is a bit more subtle than other Earl Grey’s, but not unpleasantly so. I actually liked this better, I think. Not bitter, not overpowering. Captain Picard would approve.