Trick or Treat! So my Halloween Wheel o’ Tea has selected this for my treat bag today, and I’m pretty happy since Earl Grey is a nice breakfast staple. Mmm… Earl Grey cupcakes! The dry leaf has a lovely bergamot aroma, but I smell a lot of sweet vanilla too, and it does smell a little like cake frosting (particularly the cream cheese cake frosting which is my favorite). I’m also loving all those pretty golden tipped tea leaves I’m seeing in the blend… Yunnan and Vietnam blacks are pretty much my favorites, so I’m expecting the base on this to be downright delightful.
I had a tiny bit of vanilla almond milk left that I wanted to use up before the carton went bad, so I ended up making a large latte, and then emptying my overflow tea into a separate cup, so I had half a cup of plain tea leftover, so I got to try the tea plain and as a latte from the 16 oz. brew I whipped up. The aroma from the spent leaves and brewed cup had a surprisingly somewhat floral note to me; the bergamot wasn’t coming off as strongly in aroma as it was on the dry leaf, and the sweetness somehow just smelled like a fresh-cut bouquet to me. The flavor still had a perky bergamot taste, with that being the promanent note in the cup, with a sweet vanilla and subtle cream note coming out toward the finish. The base tea was indeed quite smooth; I didn’t notice any astringency from this cuppa.
The latte invoked a much stronger “cupcake” element; I had a very small amount of vanilla almond milk in the cup, but it was just enough to bring out more sweetness and creaminess, emphasize the vanilla, and temper the bergamot a bit, and the result did come out feeling creamy and cakey. The smoothness of the base make this an Earl Grey I’d have no problems drinking plain, but I just found the profile a little nicer taken London Fog style.
Flavors: Bergamot, Citrus, Cream, Floral, Smooth, Vanilla