Tippy Earl Grey

The much anticipated tea that I won from the SororiTEA Sisters blog (run by our very own Steepsterites – LiberTEAS and TeaEqualsBliss) arrived today! That was extremely fast – great customer service from Golden Moon.

On to the tea:
I was a bit afraid of this tea because Earl Grey can easily become perfume and because I was afraid the lavender would be too floral. The scent of the dry tea was reassuring because it definitely wasn’t the strongest bergamot Earl Grey I’ve come across. After brewing, the tea was a medium brown and the bergamot/lavender scents were present, but muted. Taken plain, the tea is quite serviceable and smooth with the lavender and bergamot blending nicely with the medium strength black tea base.

I love drinking Earl Grey in the mornings, so for this tea to be suitable as a breakfast tea it had to pass the milk and sugar test. The additions nicely complement but do not overpower any of the flavors present in the tea. This will be nice with breakfast.

I want to thank LiberTEAS and TeaEqualsBliss for their entertaining blog that allowed me the opportunity to win this giveaway. I’m very glad that the giveaway tea was such a great one. I think that any Earl Grey fan would love this and I also think that people who don’t love Earl Grey because of the perfume-like aspect would appreciate this.

I love Earl Grey in the morning – it really invigorates! The aroma, the flavor – it really gets me going!

I really like this blend a lot. The lavender is nice. Smooth and very delicious.

By the way – we (the SororiTEA Sisters) will be giving away a tin of this next week! Details coming soon!

http://sororitea.wordpress.com

Finishing up a cup of this. I still have a LOT of it so I will donate to BOX B since it was lost.

I am trying to do some sample stashbusting for the rest of this week! Lets see how many samples I can get through before I move.

I had a sample of this before, but another sample pouch of this came to me via Infusin_Susan, I believe. I really liked this one before and am interested to see how it comes off now, since my tastes have changed quite a bit from the last time I tried this.

I have to say that whereas once was quite a fan of this, now it’s decent but not great. I don’t know what to point out except that I don’t think I am really that much of a lavender fan. That said the lavender in this is light and not soapy, which helps its cause a lot. I think it is partly the base that I no longer care for so much; it has a particular flavor that I am just not digging. But it is still a drinkable cup and I am enjoying it.

Random Selection from Golden Moon Tea Sampler—perhaps #18? I have lost count.

I had read the reviews of this previously and when I opened the package I was initially enchanted by the aroma. At last a Golden Moon Tea sample with some real character—which I have not seen since their wonderful Melon tea. Then I thought of a comment that Rabs had made about how this dry tea smells like Pledge furniture polish—-the thought popped into my head—I had read her review but it seemed like a long time ago.

So there i was with the proverbial mixed emotions: wanting to try a tea that kept oscillating in aroma between a good strong bergamot and Pledge. A sequence of ancient Pledge commercials paraded before my eyes and then led to a vision of that Ty-D-Bowl guy—-a miniature of the actor who played Murray on the Mary Tyler Moore Show—navigating the waters of a toilet on a small raft singing an eerily awful prototype of a raggastan number.

So I had digressed mentally but my nose had ferreted more deeply into the aroma and I was set to enjoy the tea—visions of New Lemon Pledge and Ty-D-Bowl notwithstanding. (The thing about popular culture is that it wraps itself around society including those virtuous people who don’t watch television but yet have somehow learned by magical Osmosis that Cyndi Lauper and Sharon Osbourne are on the Celebrity Apprentice kow-towing to Donald Trump—-and yet there was not one single mention of Britain’s parliamentary elections of yesterday in my local newspaper).

Another digression. The brew was a fairly decent Earl Grey but not one that made me want to sit up and salute. It’s a good Earl Grey but I continue to search for the definitive Earl Grey that I will want to always keep in my cupboard. There are a couple of candidates thus far, but this one just does not quite make it—sort of like the political parties in England—there is no clear winner yet and I will keep on trying Earl Grey teas but I don’t think I will end up with this as my standard of Earl Grey Excellence.

Not at all a bad effort, just not a stunner.

This tea and I are becoming such good friends it is on the border of being ridiculous.

Dear the Earl of Grey,

We have such a complicated relationship, and it’s really beginning to make my head spin. I’m not sure if we should break it off or not. I keep coming back for more, but instead of embracing me in your earl-y arms, you just forsake me, and leave me weeping, begging for a cup of something else.

I had faith that today you would be a bit less moody than normal. After all, Golden Moon blends you with the the tips of black tea, and lavender. I figured you’d be complex and mysterious and intriguing. That your bergamot would blend with your black and that for once, everything would be copacetic.

So, with slight anticipation (because I’ve been let down by you so many times before), I steeped a cup. Your leaves this time were quite gorgeous, with lovely golds and browns and greens. And you smelled absolutely delicious this morning – more on the floral side of bergamot than the citrus side.

The infusion today was red and copper, a beautiful color. And the smell coming from the steeped cup was more black tea toasty-ness than actual bergamot. Could it be? Were you ready to embrace me with open arms?

Mr. Grey, I have to say, you were quite tolerable today. But still heavily disappointing, just because I was expecting you to be that much better. I think the lavender smoothed out your rough edges, and took a bite out of your bergamot sharpness. Although I couldn’t taste the lavender component of the tea, there was a soothing feeling about you today. Your black base was definitely more delicious than usual, and a bit more complex than normal. But then your bergamot flavors had to invade and ruin the party. Granted, you weren’t as bitter or abrasive today. You were almost soothing. But there’s still something off between us.

Maybe we’re just not meant to be together. Yet I’m still attracted to your tweed and monocle. I just can’t help myself. Maybe our next date will be better.

xoxo,
teaplz

I chose this one today because the moment I’ve been waiting for for three years has come!!! My lavender plant that I raised from seed IS READY TO FLOWER!!!! Yaaay!!!!!!

I wanted to drink this one without milk (I’m at work, plus I thought lavender and milk would be…not so good. I think this is where I screwed up the rose tea and made Rose Milk Lotion – shudder! Anyway!) so I brewed it slightly under boiling and for only 3 minutes.

It’s really nice! The black tea base has no bitterness brewed like this, and the lavender with the bergamot is not overpowering – just a good old fashioned fruit and floral. This is one of those teas that I would probably only want to have every now and again, when I’m in my nostalgic moods. Since this is the first I’ve tasted, I’d like to taste around a little… if you’ve tasted one from another company that you thought was stellar, I’d love to hear your recommendation!

I did a second steep at 5 minutes and it’s very similar to the first. Mmmm! I also think this would be spectacular iced.

Sipdown technically, although I am going to try and resteep this time. (123) When I like something enough to have two cups in a row (or two cups in a day, period), it’s something special. This time I overleafed and put some milk in—lemon in EGs isn’t my favorite, but I do like them with milk.

This one holds up to milk well—it brings out the bergamot more and blends with the lavender to make the whole cup more smooth. Very nice!

My first tea of 2010. Go me. No specific reason for having this one. Just because I can.

This smells nice. Fresh, citrus-y, lavender-y and a little… sweetly spicy (probably the lavender again?). The taste doesn’t quite come across to me as rich as the smell. The lavender is more pronounced and the citrus not quite as juicy as I’d like. There is a little tingle left on the tip of my tongue that matches up to the sweet spicy smell. I do enjoy that.

The overall taste is smooth and a little sweet but a nice, warming finish. I might have enjoyed this brewed longer for a more robust taste, though. But I think the lavender will always hold it back just a little for me. Don’t get me wrong, I like lavender EGs, but I think they do best to gentle a not-so-good EG. Have a bad EG? It’s gross. Have a bad EG with lavender? Suddenly it is much better.

I think I would have liked to see what Golden Moon could have done with a straight EG. But at the same time, the few sips of EG I had at the London Tea Room (stolen from the husband) were really what I wanted in an EG. Strong bergamot with a juicy, fresh taste. And this one just seems a little pale in comparison to the memory of that one. That being said, this is a pretty good EG. If I had a tin of this, I don’t think I’d have any problems drinking it up. But it’s not the fresh-squeezed-EG taste that I’m really wanting.

I did have enough for the husband to have his own cup. He is a fan, he says. He also compared it to the EG he had at the London Tea Room (which was Rishi) but says this one is sweeter and has a hint less citrus. That’s probably because of the softening factor of the lavender. Anyway, I think he’d be happy if we had a tin of this laying around.