Allyson Whipple

Tag: black tea

  • The Earl Grey Year Part 3: Four More Classics

    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. 

    A pie chart showing that my tea tasting project is 20% complete

    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). 

    A pie chart indicating the proportions of each type of tea I've consumed so far.

    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.

  • The Earl Grey Year Part 1: Four Classics

    The Earl Grey Year Part 1: Four Classics

    Welcome to a 25-part blog series in which I review (kind of) 100 different Earl Grey teas over the course of 2024. I wanted to do a big tea-based project, and ultimately, drinking a range of Earl Greys seemed like the best bet. 100 different Earl Grey teas is a lot, but really, I have to drink less than 10 a month, and if you knew how much tea I drank on the regular, you would realize that’s a perfectly reasonable challenge. Earl Grey is also a tea that doesn’t necessarily need milk or sweetener. It’s versatile, bright, and honestly, was a tea that took me a while to like. So challenging myself to really go deep into this style of tea seems like a fun way to develop my palate.

    Each post will consist of four sections: a discussion of four teas I’ve tried, grouped by category, and then a breakdown of my progress on the tasting journey, including charts that show what I’ve drank across categories. I hope you enjoy this tea journey as much as I do!

    Four Classics Earl Grey Teas


    I define Classic Earl Grey as containing only two things: black tea and bergamot. Of course, there are a number of Earl Grey variations, and I have set up categories for those. For this initial post, though, I want to focus on four versions of the standard blend.

    Eastside Earl Grey – The Steeping Room, Austin, TX

    Eastside Earl Grey is at a distinct advantage, as it’s a long-established favorite. In fact, when I first tried Earl Grey back in 2006, I hated it. It actually made me throw up! It wasn’t until 2022, when I made an Earl Grey ice cream pie, that I tried the tea again. I went to The Steeping Room to buy their Eastside Earl Grey because I wanted to use quality tea as part of my pie. The pie was delicious, but with all the cream and sugar in the pie, I wasn’t sure I really loved the tea, or if the parts I disliked were mitigated. Of course, there was plenty left over, so rather than waste it, I started brewing it. To my surprise, I couldn’t get enough. I was finally an Earl Grey convert.

    The Eastside Earl Grey uses real Italian bergamot, and I think both the real and the Italian make a difference. I understand why some tea companies make the decision to use artificial bergamot. But the way mashed potatoes from scratch are more satisfying than mashed potatoes from a box, real bergamot makes a better impression than artificial. Sure, there is a time and place for boxed mashed potatoes; in fact, they might scratch a sentimental itch. And there is a time and place to use artificial bergamot. But tasting an Earl Grey that uses a real bergamot was a game–changer.

    Ultimately, this tea holds such a special place in my heart that it will be tough for any other Earl Grey to compare. This was the first tea I drank in 2024, and though it’s a familiar cup for my palate, it always tastes fresh.

    Earl Grey Classic – Fortnum & Mason, London

    It feels sacreligious to say that I didn’t like this blend. Fortnum & Mason is a legend. The bergamot smell was strong on the dry leaves, but I wrote in my tea journal, “It feels like as soon as the water hits the leaves, the bergamot washes away.” Of course, that’s not literally true. Otherwise there would be at least one cup with an overwhelming hit of bergamot. Certainly, though, that was how it felt over the course of drinking six cups of it, hoping that I would find something to like. But infusion after infusion, I couldn’t taste the bergamot once it was steeped. 

    Fortnum & Mason doesn’t specify on their website what kind of bergamot. The ingredients for this blend are “Tea, Flavouring.” (I admit that I love the simplicity.) Since it’s not specific, it’s tough for me to point to a specific reason why this tea didn’t work for me. I did also note how small the leaves were. Compared to the Eastside Earl Grey, which has big, full leaves (see, I told you this was the standard), these were tiny, and just didn’t look visually appealing either dry or wet. Again, there are no specifics about the tea, so it’s tough for me to make a definitive statement, but it certainly didn’t help things. 

    (Don’t worry, I had a much better experience with Fortnum’s Smoky Earl Grey, but that’s a topic for another post.)

    Earl Grey Organic – Tea Market, Kansas City, MO

    I appreciate that Tea Market includes the specific teas included in this blend. There are three black teas in this Earl Grey: Assam, Ceylon, and Nilgiri. In addition, they use Turkish bergamot instead of Italian. I tried to do some research on the differences between Turkish and Italian bergamot. Reading some scientific abstracts online, there are definitely some differences in the various chemical compounds. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get access to the full articles, so all I could discern is that Turkish and Italian bergamot are not exactly the same. But this is only the first post of the year, and I am confident that eventually, I can probably get access to some quality scientific information. 

    Like the Eastside Earl Grey, I found this blend to be incredibly well-balanced. I felt that the bergamot was more subtle than the Eastside Earl Grey. I’m not sure if that’s because of the specific chemical components of Turkish bergamot, or something specific to my palate. While I prefer a bolder level of bergamot, ultimately, this was still an enjoyable Earl Grey that I would drink again. 

    I find that there are two types of people who are resistant to traditional Earl Grey: those who do not like black tea, and those who do not like bergamot. For someone who is skeptical of Earl Grey and knows they don’t love bergamot, this might be a good one for them to try. It’s a great example of a bergamot that is flavorful without being aggressive. This could easily be a tea that converts someone to Earl Grey.

    Earl Grey – Artful Tea, Santa Fe, NM

    The kind folks at Artful Tea sent me samples of all four of their Earl Grey blends. Thanks to Karen and the team for supporting this project!

    The classic Earl Grey from Artful Tea is similar in balance to the version from Tea Market, in that the bergamot is subtle, but the black tea is not overpowering. This is another version of Earl Grey that would be great for a skeptic who doesn’t love bergamot. I certainly understand that skepticism. When I first tried an Earl Grey in 2006 and got sick, it was because of the bergamot flavor. (Side note: since I began writing this blog post, I decided to give that brand another try . . . but that’s a post for another day!) In both this blend and the Tea Market blend, you can taste the black tea and bergamot easily; neither overpowers the other.

    The Artful Tea approach to Earl Grey involves straight Yunnan tea rather than a blend of teas. In addition, like most blenders, it uses Italian bergamot. One of the things I noticed in my tasting was that sometimes bergamot tastes more toward the lemon end of the spectrum, and sometimes it tastes more orange. As someone who is more partial to lemon and less partial to orange, this is a blend that will have a regular place on my shelf. One of the things I should consider in future study is whether Italian bergamot has more lemon-related compounds than orange. 

    That being said, there are a number of factors that can influence the molecular structure of bergamot. Soil quality and climate conditions can have an effect on the fruits from year to year. We can’t just say Italian bergamot always tastes one way, Turkish always tastes another, and Greek a third way. There are no absolutes, and honestly, I think that’s lovely.

    By the Numbers

    As of this writing, I’ve tasted 8/100 Earl Grey teas. I need to taste 9 a month to stay on track, and with 10 days left to go in the month, that’s reasonable. I’m taking a little tasting break through the weekend to avoid boredom, and also to focus on the tasting homework for my tea sommelier training. (Yesterday I started sampling the delights from the Lunar New Year box from The Steeping Room, and today I am enjoying some samples from the My New Favorite Tea box.) 

    As far as categories go, I’ve sampled four classic Earl Greys, two Lady Greys, one Creme Earl Grey, and one special variation. I will elaborate more on those categories in future posts. My plan is to sample two more Lady Grey teas and have that be the focus of my next post. I’ll do my best to do four of the same category in each write-up, but I might not be able to do that if I want to stay consistent. We’ll see! If you have any recommendations for Earl Grey teas for me to sample, please leave a comment!

    Support the Project

    Enjoying this series? You can support my tea wish list here, or send me a DM on Instagram if you have samples you want to share! (I’m now realizing I don’t have a proper contact page on this site, but I’ll remedy that for the next post.)

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