Lavender Earl Grey

I have 2oz of this tea thanks to darby who was willing to split her Ovation Teas order and ship them to me overseas. I got 6oz of Ovation Teas for $20.43 including the shipping. Bargain :)

This lavender blend could be just what I need before bedtime tonight. I have a craving for something black based and lavender makes me sleep like a new born kitten.

The blend has a sweet orange and lavender smell but overall it’s only mild in strength. Much more subtle than expected but that’s something my husband will be happy to hear, he hates lavender.

The steeping instructions estimate a time of 5-6 minutes which in my opinion would be a bit too strong. The blend has a lot of black tea, I feel it would only harshen the flavour. So I shortened the time but will eventually try the full 6 minutes, depending on how this cup tastes.

The first few sips reveal a malty and subtly smoky black tea with an after taste of lavender with a sweet and sour orange tang.

I think I was correct to lower the steep time, I think it would have been far too thick and astringent otherwise. As it cools the black tea dominates quite heavily and it thickens. The base is so strong I’m wondering what this would be like as a night time iced tea? Will have to try that at some point.

The good – The lavender is mild and fresh
The bad – For an Earl Grey the bergamot/orange is too mild

I enjoyed this tea but wished it was a little better. It’s not quite what I imagined when I thought of a lavender early grey. But never mind, it’s still a pleasant night time tea.

Tea #2 from Traveling Tea Box C

I can be a bit picky about lavender. At times I find it can be overwhelming and it leaves a weird stinging sensation in the back of my throat. Other times it is a subtle addition which turns pedestrian flavors into the extraordinary. This tea falls into the latter category.

The base is quite robust, and I love that it contains some Ceylon. The citrus component of the flavor tastes more like orange than bergamot, which may be a plus for bergamot-shy drinkers. The real star, however, is the lavender. Without it, this would be a perfectly decent Earl Grey, but nothing great. The lavender flavor is subtly strong— while there’s absolutely no denying it’s presence, it works more in the background to smooth out the other flavors.

Very likable Earl Grey. I haven’t had Earl Grey in years or a tea with lavender for a very long time either. This tea has a Lipton like brisk blend of the black tea, though better. None of the flavors are overpowering. I had it iced, and it was great. Before you sip it, you can inhale the orange flavor.

It’s a good earl grey. I haven’t had any in years Mel sent me a sample ( Thanks :))

I was very pleasantly surprised by this tea. I normally don’t like Earl Greys (partially because they smell like the natural soaps I use). So with the addition of lavender, this tea smelled even more like soap to me. But, this is actually a nice mild Earl Grey. The bergamot is not overdone and the lavender just kind of smooths everything out. This is probably the only Earl Grey that I might actually consider buying (got this one from Mel, thanks again!). Prepared with stevia.

Sipdown! (19/254)

This sample came from the EU Travelling Tea Box Round 2, courtesy of KittyLovesTea. This was actually Frank’s pick from the original box, I think mainly because I was badgering him to go outside of his usual straight black or earl grey comfort zone, and this was the least outside of it he had to go to get me off his back. He turned out to really love it, and I was originally going to put the samples back ater one cup but he asked to keep it. I kept enough back to have my own cup at the end of the sample to satisfy my curiosity. Honestly, I think it must have been contaminated since, because if not, I don’t understand why he loved it so much.

I have since bought him some lavender earl grey from Adagio,which I have tried myself and really enjoyed. I assumed that this would be similar, but it turns out not really. The lavender scent is very powerful, and the whole kitchen smelled like my grandma’s garden right away when steeping. The bergamot was also present I a light, citrusy way. The smell was super good, but unfortunately the earl grey just didn’t translate into the flavour. The lavender is EXTREMELY strong, and completely drowns out the other flavours. For my first few sips, I found this enjoyable, although as my cup went on I started to find it cloying and was actually quite sick of it by the end of the cup. I also started to notice a sort of stale taste part way through, which I will attribute to the fact that I haven’t kept it entirely well, and the sample has been open for quite some time now. I can’t mark it poorly, though, as I did enjoy the first quarter of the cup, and Frankie’s opinion should be taken into account, too. It’s only fair. Plus I also seem to remember sneaking a sip each time I made it for him, and enjoyed it considerably more than I did today.

Drank with milk to tone down the punch of flavour, and a sprinkling of sugar to round it off.

I received this tea from Fiddling as an extra sample when I purchased some teas from her. I really appreciate her throwing in 2 extra samples to taste. This tea is overwhelmed by the amount of lavender in it. I think if it had less lavender, it would be a nice mellow tea.

Lavender Earl Greys are yet another of those tea categories I’m not quite comfortable with (I’ll probably need a good rest at a spa or something after this swap box sampling round.) but want to make some kind of final decision on. I decided to go with the steeping suggestion from KittyLovesTea’s review of this, as the full six-minute steep seemed too steep (Hue hueee. I guess we are doing puns this month. ) for me and my black tea issues.

The dry tea is all about the lavender to me. It efficiently drowns out any other scent notes, except possibly some small hint of the tea base. Steeped, the tea base acquires significantly more potency, and it’s roughly a 50/50 lavender/tea base (I don’t love) balance.

This is a really, really difficult one for me. It tastes so much like a fish dish I made once – it was oven-baked cod with rosemary and some kind of creamy topping. It was the strangest blend of really disgusting and really good – I still get freaky little cravings for it on the rare occasion. What made it problematic was the perfumey quality of the rosemary combined with the fish, and this strikes me as similar. The black tea base is pretty savoury, and to me that really collides with the perfume notes of the lavender. I think for a lavender EG to work for me, it needs to be far more delicately blended, and with a more complex taste structure.

Let me emphasize that the rating in no way reflects the quality of the tea, but my own severe hangups in terms of lavender EGs.

Thanks for sharing, KittyLovesTea!

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]