Between having 11 different Earl Grey blends and being one of my favorite tea companies, Simpson & Vail ended up capturing a large proportion of my tasting queue. With several of their teas left to review, I thought I would devote this week’s installment to four of the Earl Greys I tasted most recently. Plus, this week I’m reviewing the final tisane of this challenge; I know I’m not going to have another one, so it’s easier to group it by company rather than by category. Believe it or not, I still have one more Simpson & Vail blend to review after this! But that will be reserved for one of the final three blog posts. 

Earl Grey

This classic blend contains four different black teas: Darjeeling, Assam, Chinese, and Sri Lankan, scented with bergamot oil. The dry aroma smells sweeter than most of the other blends I’ve sampled so far, though there’s no sort of added sugar. This was the 88th tea I tasted, and I admit that in my journal, I noted that I wasn’t excited to drink another standard Earl Grey. 

The steeped aroma smells more of tea than bergamot. Although that always makes me question whether I’ll truly love the blend, honestly, the melding of different teas smells fantastic. I wish I could just release that steam in a diffuser all day.

On tasting, I once again felt the bergamot was on the weak side. However, I was nonetheless loving the black tea blend. I would be happy to drink this as a straight black tea without any bergamot addition. I’m going to have to go through their newest catalog to see if I can’t find something similar on their blend list. 

Lady Myrtle’s Earl Grey Tisane

Simpson & Vail have created a complex blend, one that is earthy, sweet, citrusy, and floral all at once. It contains lemon myrtle, rooibos, rose, lavender, and bergamot flavor. 

This tisane has a citrus-forward dry aroma, with rooibos, rose, and lavender following. The citrus is a combination of bergamot and lemon myrtle, and I admit that I struggled to distinguish between them. The steeped aroma had the same profile.  

On the taste, however, the lemon myrtle asserted itself over the bergamot; I could definitely tell the difference between them. Unfortunately, I felt that it overwhelmed everything else. The rooibos and the lavender are also heavy, with the rose and bergamot barely detectable on my tongue. It feels like the different elements are in competition with each other rather than harmonizing.

Mrs. Grey’s Blend

Simpson & Vail’s approach to Lady Grey includes sizable pieces of orange and lemon peel in addition to black tea and bergamot. The dry cup has such a strong citrus aroma that the tea is difficult to detect.

On the steeped blend, on the other hand, the aroma is almost reversed: the tea scent dominates. Given the overall amount of citrus, I was surprised that it lightened up so much upon steeping. 

For my first tasting, I followed the suggested instructions of a three-minute steep. Unfortunately, something really felt off when I tasted it, so much so that I made a few more cups just to be sure. Things tasted so odd that I wondered if I’d actually made a mistake with the steeping time, or if my palate was off from something I’d eaten recently. The citrus was quite bitter no matter if I adjusted the steeping time, cleansed my palate, or anything else. I wonder if the bergamot had simply gone off, which happens from time to time. 

Darjeeling Earl Grey

This is another tea where I struggled with the categorization. On the one hand, this is simply black tea and bergamot, which would render it a classic. On the other hand, this is the only blend of all 100 teas that uses solely Darjeeling as the tea base. Because straight Darjeeling is a rarity for Earl Grey, I ended up classifying this as a special variation.

The dry cup smells bright and a little sweet. I could tell from the first inhale that it would be refreshing, and I was immediately excited to see how it tasted. I did the suggested three-minute steep. The scent of the infused liquid was heavy on the tea, but the bergamot nonetheless shone through. 

I loved the taste of this one. While the bergamot wasn’t quite as strong as I would prefer, it was still bright and enjoyable. It was as refreshing as I hoped it would be, and is definitely the kind of tea you can drink all day (provided you can handle the caffeine). It’s quite enjoyable, and Darjeeling fans should definitely give this a try.

By the Numbers

I did not expect to finish October ahead of schedule! I only had to taste my 90th tea by the end of the month, and I ended up drinking five extra blends. Unless things go way off the rails in November (let’s hope not . . .), it looks like I’ll be finishing the tasting portion of this project a month early. 

The pie chart proportions still haven’t changed that much in the grand scheme of things. I’ve also filled out the last few teas in my tasting queue, and I can see from that the proportions really aren’t going to change much more. There are no more tisanes in the queue, only one more floral blend, and only one more green (neither of which appear on the pie chart yet, because I haven’t tasted them). The rest is mostly classic blends, with a few special variations. 

Now that the challenge is wrapping up, I do want to start thinking about how to celebrate. I mentioned a while back that I was thinking about doing a giveaway, and I’m still excited about that idea. So now it’s time to start thinking about how I want to put that together. 

Support the Project

Read previous installments here:

The Earl Grey Year Part 1: Four Classics

The Earl Grey Year Part 2: Four Florals

The Earl Grey Year Part 3: Four More Classics

The Earl Grey Year Part 4: Greens and Tisanes

The Earl Grey Year Part 5: Cremes and Special Variations

The Earl Grey Year Part 6: Classics and Florals

The Earl Grey Year Part 7: Classics and Special Variations

The Earl Grey Year Part 8: Cremes and Variations Part 2

The Earl Grey Year Part 9 : Four More Florals

The Earl Grey Year Part 10: Halfway Point

The Earl Grey Year Part 11: Kusmi Tea

The Earl Grey Year Part 12: Cremes and Classics

The Earl Grey Year Part 13: Four More Special Variations

The Earl Grey Year Part 14: Tisanes and Classics

The Earl Grey Year Part 15: European Classics

The Earl Grey Year Part 16: Even More Classics and Variations

The Earl Grey Year Part 17: Creams and Greens

The Earl Grey Year Part 18: Florals and a Classics Challenge

The Earl Grey Year Part 19: Even More Variations

The Earl Grey Year Part 20: Classics and Greens

The Earl Grey Year Part 21: Four by the London Tea Merchant

Project References

Note: This is an ongoing list of all the reading I have done so far for this project. The bibliographic entries here are not necessarily cited in this specific post.

American Chemical Society. (1965). “Bergamot Joins Lineup Of Synthetic Oils: Glidden process breaks down ß-pinene, back-blends components.” Chemical & Engineering News Archive 43 (33), 24-25. DOI: 10.1021/cen-v043n033.p024a 

Avila-Sosa, Raúl et. al.  “Bergamot (Citrus bergamia) Oils.” Essential Oils in Food Preservation, Flavor and Safety. Ed. Preedy, V.R. (2015). Elsevier Science & Technology. pp. 247-252. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-416641-7.00027-4

Di Giacomi, Angelo and Giovanni Dugo. “Origin, History, and Diffusion.” Citrus bergamia: Bergamot and Its Derivatives. Ed. Dugo, Giovanni and Ivana Bonaccorsi. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2013. pp. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1201/b15375

Dugo, Giovanni and Ivana Bonaccorsi. “Composition of Leaf Oils.” Citrus bergamia: Bergamot and Its Derivatives. Ed. Dugo, Giovanni and Ivana Bonaccorsi. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2013. pp. 227-236. https://doi.org/10.1201/b15375

Galper, Amy. (December 14, 2022.) “Shelf Life of Essential Oils.” Cliganic. https://www.cliganic.com/blogs/the-essentials/essential-oils-shelf-life 

Heale, Christopher. (n.d.) “A Guide to the Tea Grading System.” Herbs & Kettles. https://www.herbsandkettles.com/blogs/blog/a-guide-to-the-tea-grading-system 

Lo Curto, Rosario. “Uses of Juice and By-Products.” Citrus bergamia: Bergamot and Its Derivatives. Ed. Dugo, Giovanni and Ivana Bonaccorsi. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2013. pp. 531-542. https://doi.org/10.1201/b15375

My Earl Grey. (n.d.) “What is Russian Earl Grey?” https://www.myearlgrey.com/articles/what-is-russian-earl-grey-tea/ 

Nishida, Kei.  “What Does Astringency Mean for Tea Drinking?” (n.d.) Japanese GreenTea Co. https://www.japanesegreentea.in/blogs/japanese-green-tea-lovers-in-india/what-does-astringency-mean-for-tea-drinking 

Petite Histoire. (July 7, 2023).  “The [Complete & Complex] Guide to Natural vs. Synthetic Fragrance: What’s the Difference?” https://nyc.ph/blogs/inspiration/the-complete-guide-to-natural-vs-synthetic-fragrance

Rosen, Diana. (November 3, 2020). “New – Coffee Leaf Arabica tea.” TeaSmart. https://www.teasmart.com/article_201106.html 

Sorokina, Anna. (April 25, 2020). “‘Russian Teas’ that Russians Know Nothing About.” Russia Beyond. https://www.rbth.com/russian-kitchen/332070-rusian-tea-abroad 
Twinings. (n.d.) “What is Bergamot?” https://twinings.co.uk/blogs/news/what-is-bergamot