The Earl Grey Year Part 3: Four More Classics

Between winter weather and the foibles of the United States Postal Service, I was worried that I was going to completely lose momentum on this project in February. Although I had plenty of tea on hand to stay on track with the tasting schedule (I only need to sample 9 blends a month to stay on track), I didn’t have enough variety to get four teas in the same category, which meant I couldn’t keep up with blog posts. 

The short version of the story is that January’s winter storms meant that my samples from Cove Tea Company went out about two weeks later than planned. Obviously that couldn’t be helped. But the parcel got shipped as soon as the weather cleared, and was supposed to be delivered by February 6th. After it cleared customs on the West Coast, it was at a distribution center in St. Louis . . . and then for some reason sent to Chicago to go through customs again. After that, it bypassed St. Louis and ended up in Dallas, then Louisiana, and then went through another round of customs in Miami before finally making it to my house on February 26th. And at no point was anyone at USPS able to offer me an explanation for what happened. But I have to say, nothing creates a business/customer bond like the shared experience of constantly tracking the adventures of a tea package that seems to be having a great road trip.

Fortunately, my friend @royal_teacups on Instagram sent me an abundance of Earl Grey samples. Although the package had to make its way across the ocean, somehow it arrived in just over a week, while my Canada package was meandering all over the place! I really appreciate Inessa’s generosity because a number of the samples she sent me would be difficult to get in the United States. Plus I get to try some brands I might have never encountered otherwise! This bumper crop of tea samples meant I finally had enough classic blends to do another post on that category.

Four More Classics

As a reminder, I define a classic Earl Grey as containing black tea and bergamot. No more, no less. The tea can be single-source or it can be a blend, and the bergamot could be from any of the various regions, but a standard Earl Grey should only contain these two things. 
In this post, I cover some Earl Grey teas from companies large and small, including a revisit of the first Earl Grey I ever tried. The final two teas are part of the package that @royal_teacups sent me.

Earl Grey, Bigelow

Back in my first post for this project, I alluded to the fact that a certain Earl Grey tea making me ill caused me to avoid the blend for years. For the sake of being polite, I chose not to reveal the name of that brand. After all, I was still new to tea; perhaps an error in my preparation had made it that unpalatable. But since I ended up drinking the Bigelow Earl Grey for this project, I think the context is important.

I didn’t set out to revisit the Bigelow Earl Grey. I have not consumed a cup of it since that day in my dorm 18 years ago, when I could make it only halfway through the cup. However, one day I was eating lunch at work and noticed that, among the assortment of bagged teas in the breakroom, were several boxes of Bigelow Earl Grey. And I figured it would be foolish to not make a cup of it for this project, especially when it was freely available and only required a walk across the office to acquire. Acquiring 100 different Earl Grey teas requires a bit of effort, so once in a while, it’s worth going for the low-hanging fruit.
I’m happy to report that this time around, the Bigelow Earl Grey did not produce any ill effects! In fact, I was surprised to find myself loving the first sip! The bergamot was more toward the lemon end of the spectrum (as opposed to orange), and the blend was smooth. Unfortunately, as the tea cooled the bergamot flavor seemed to weaken. I suspect that this tea being in a standard commercial tea bag (as opposed to a sachet or loose leaf) is part of the problem. The leaves in commercial tea bags tend to be fannings (or sometimes dust, but I imagine a company like Bigelow uses fannings), and while those can produce a highly concentrated tea flavor, sometimes that can overwhelm other aspects of a blend. (For more information on fanning and other tea grading terms, check out this great blog post from Herbs & Kettles: “A Guide to the Tea Grading System.”)

Earl Grey Français, Artful Tea

Although the name might suggest otherwise, this blend from Artful Tea is a straight-up classic. The tea base is a blend of Ceylon and Yunnan teas, and the Français in the name refers to the French bergamot that is used for flavoring.  

In my quest to understand the differences between Italian, Turkish, and now French bergamot (which so far have been largely unsuccessful), I did learn that bergamot became fashionable in France in the 16th century, when aristocrats wore it in perfume. (For more information on the history of bergamot, check out “What is Bergamot?” from the Twinings blog.)

This is an absolutely beautiful blend, and is my favorite of the teas I tried for this post. I think there’s something about French bergamot that really resonates with my palate, because I tried this tea on January 26th (over a month before I was able to write this post), and I am still thinking about what an excellent tea it is. This blend uses Yunnan tea as the base, and something about that particular tea with the right amount of French bergamot is magical.  

It’s on par with my known favorite, the Eastside Earl Grey (EEG) from The Steeping Room. Once I’m done collecting samples of Earl Grey from far and wide, this is a tea that I can see living alongside the EEG as a permanent part of my tea stash.

Earl Grey, Magasin du Nord

Magasin du Nord is a famous department store in Copenhagen, so I’m grateful to @royal_teacups for the teamail, since I don’t imagine I’d have had a chance to try this otherwise! I did have to run the website description of the tea through Google Translate, but thanks to translation software, I was able to find out that this Earl Grey uses a blend of black teas, though it doesn’t specify which ones.

Whatever teas they use, the black tea flavor is delightful. The bergamot tends toward the subtle side. As I sampled it, the main word that came to mind was “refreshing.” Even though I was drinking this tea hot on an unseasonably warm day (80 degrees Fahrenheit in February!), I truly felt refreshed after drinking it. There’s no bitterness to the tea; everything is bright and delicious. This is an easy tea to drink. Between the smoothness of the tea and the lightness of the bergamot, I don’t think this particular tea would be enhanced by milk or cream. If you like sweetener, though, I think honey would be a marvelous addition to this blend.

Decaf Earl Grey, Lupicia

This tea really fell flat for me. The leaves looked nice; this tea was packaged in a pyramid sachet so the leaves had room to expand. However, after steeping this tea from Lupicia, the best adjective I could come up with was bland. It wasn’t a terrible tea; the Keemun they used had a strong, earthy flavor. But I could barely detect any bergamot. I tasted the black tea almost exclusively, and had to really seek out traces of citrus.

I admit to having a bias against decaffeinated tea, but I did my level best to go into this tasting with an open mind. When I was really having trouble picking up the bergamot flavor, I even took a break and drank some sparkling water to cleanse my palate and try again. Ultimately, though, I didn’t particularly enjoy this as an Earl Grey.

By the Numbers

I’m closing out February slightly ahead of schedule, with a total of 20 teas sampled since the start of the year. With all the tea mail I got at the end of the month, I don’t need to worry about acquiring more samples for a while, which is a good feeling. The volume of Earl Grey in my tea collection also means that I’m going to be able to write these blog posts more frequently. 

Traditional Earl Grey blends still dominate the tasting list (no surprise, considering this is the second post devoted to them). However, in February I also drank more special variations, and also added some Earl Greys made with green tea, as well as some Earl Grey tisanes (herbal teas). 

With the new samples that have come in, I expect to be able to write about special variations and tisane Earl Greys in the near future. I’m also excited to finally be able to delve into the variety of samples I got from Cove Tea Company!

Support the Project

Read previous installments here:
The Earl Grey Year Part 1: Four Classics
The Earl Grey Year Part 2: Four Florals

Enjoying this series? You can support my tea wishlist here, or contact me if you have samples you want to share! 

For more tea content, check out my tea pairings playlist on YouTube.