Earl Grey Moonlight

I also made an order at Adagio that arrived today. First one in almost three years. As I usually do, I opened each package just to sniff. It’s a sort of silly but fun ritual I have whenever I get new tea. I have to smell it, to get a feel for what it’s going to be like.

The scent of this tea made my friend and brother both grin and agree that we should try it first. It was a potent, incredibly strong Earl Grey bergamot smell, topped with rich, creamy vanilla. Like buttercream frosting. It promised to be something refined and dessert-like.

In their words, it tastes like Fruity Pebbles if Fruity Pebbles was a tea. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but I felt it was worth mentioning. This is a gorgeous balance of flavors. The vanilla lingers longest in the aftertaste in delicious harmony with the bergamot as it fades. It really does taste like the top of a cupcake, but with a strong black tea base. It’s lemony and powerful and I think it will make a great comfort tea to take with me on the way to work when it’s cold. Waking up and sipping this would definitely improve my mornings.

I had wandered away from Adagio, but I find that old loyalty is coming back.

I’m not normally a huge fan of Adagio’s flavored stuff. I used to be. But I suppose places like Kusmi, Lupicia and Mariage Freres have raised my expectations for flavored teas and Adagio no longer matches up. That being said, the husband loves having his tea with lots of sugar and milk and I refuse to sacrifice some of my super tasty (and sometimes expensive) teas (both flavored and un-) to him because of that. He gets Stash and Adagio and the like.

This is the tea I made for him this morning and the leaves smelled so good, I had to make myself some. The smell made me think of icing on an Earl Grey cupcake (if one were to make and ice an Earl Grey cupcake). Sadly, post-steeping the smell calms down from that super-sweetness a bit. But happily it still smells like an Earl Grey cupcake, just now the baked cake part (I think that’s the vanilla note making me think of cupcake cake).

The taste isn’t as cupcake-y as the smell(s). In fact, I get no cupcake. (Sadness.) But it is still nice. Oh, it’s not the smoothest tea – it’s got a little prickly texture that isn’t astringency but probably would turn into that if steeped longer – but the flavor is nice. There’s a bit of a perfume/fake flavor note on the front end, especially when slurped but the vanilla/cream-ish note to it smooths things out a bit.

Honestly, it’s not the best tea ever or anything, but it is totally drinkable without additives and that counts for something in my book.

This smells pretty nice, but the flavor is a little watery.
I added stevia, which helped.
As it cooled it got a little better, there’s a nice lemon cake with creamy frosting kind of thing, but not real inspiring.
Still, it didn’t taste bad.

This is an old favorite of mine. I think it’s an Earl Grey that I will never tire of, because of the touch of sweet and creamy vanilla. There is a robust black tea flavor with a citrusy finish. There is a little hint of bitter lemon noticeable initially. The aftertaste is completely sweet and creamy bergamot and vanilla. The tea’s flavor is a little on the weak side but adding milk and sweetener helps. I like that this is a lighter EG, it’s not too heavy on the bergamot. Now that I’ve made this cup and started sipping, it is actually less wonderful than I remembered. Still good, but just not as perfect as I’ve thought in the past. Hmmm, maybe my tastes are changing.

It’s a beautiful day here – the sun is shining and there’s a slight breeze so it’s the perfect temperature outside. Hope everyone enjoys their Tuesday!

-Dry blend has medium black tea leaves and twigs with blue and yellow petals and pieces of orange peel.
-Dry leaves smell like soft bergamot and creamy vanilla. Tea liquor aroma is of malty black tea and sweet citrus.
-Tea liquor is a clear very dark brown color.
-Robust and lemony black tea flavor with a citrusy finish. Sweet and creamy bergamot vanilla aftertaste.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Very good tea. Light malty and citrusy flavor with a hint of sweet vanilla.

Again, the steep time is soft. I’m not sure, exactly, that it’s correct.

Ready for the least-inspired tasting note I may ever write?

Here it is:

‘Mreh.’

It’s drinkable. The tea base tastes brighter than the last two Earl Greys I sipped on today. Ceylon, perhaps? The result is a pretty one-dimensional cup with a brighter, definitely more citrus-y flavor than the other two had — there was an actual chunk of dried citrus in the leaves, so that explains that.

I do appreciate that the tea taste in this has a stronger presence than in the Tea Guys cream blend, but the rest of what’s going on is pretty underwhelming, so while it moves in the right direction, it’s still very heavy on the bergamot with the vanilla taking a far backseat, with the result that it tastes to me a little bit like some sort of…cleaner.

A nice cleaner, mind you. Some kind of cleaner I wouldn’t mind using in my kitchen because it would smell good. But even so…

I should probably admit that at this point today I’m sick to death of Earl Grey. Take this with a grain of salt. ;) As a matter of fact, if anybody has been curious about trying this (I understand it’s relatively new as an offering), let me know. I have a tiny sampler tin, but I’m willing to just send it elsewhere; I have more of the Tea Guys blend than I’m likely to be able to drink while it’s fresh, anyway, and I can’t see myself wanting a whole bunch of this.

Thanks to wheezybee for sending me this sample during our swap and my apologies for not drinking these sooner. This came in while I was out of town and sat forgotten while I had my 16 year old brother-in-law visiting, otherwise it never would have taken so long to enjoy these.

I love Earl Grey tea, but for me it has always been a drink I turn to on a cold rainy day. Today wasn’t cold, but it sure was rainy, and I decided to pull this sample out of my swap basket. I didn’t really care for this blend while hot. It was very bitter, had an overwhelming citrus flavor, and didn’t really taste like EG. I put it in the fridge to cool and the vanilla really started to shine and the citrus mellowed out. This was an interesting take on EG, but not one I would count among my favorites.

I got this tea as part of my order during the Great Cherry Blossom Hunt O’Doom on the Adagio site.

The smell of the dry leaves was very nice – citrusy earl grey with a distinctly sweet vanilla scent. The earl grey base is clearly the same one as the earl grey bravo – ie. very strong and pungent – and I’d hoped that the added vanilla would tone it down a little bit, but that doesn’t really seem to be the case. I found that even with a short brewing time it was still too strong to be drunk without milk. The milk softened things out and allowed the vanilla to come through a bit, however, it had to fight the powerful bergamot notes to do so.

I’m rather disapointed as the end result wasn’t a creamy as I thought it would be and tasted very similar to the original Earl Grey Bravo.

For a girl who likes her flavored black teas, I usually don’t reach for a variation of Earl Grey. Today is different. I had planned to have hazelnut or almond oolong for breakfast as I’m getting a replenishment supply from the mail lady, who by the way can’t get here soon enough! Anyway, The Earl Grey Moonlight was sitting next to the other above mentioned teas and it won out. Strange….

Usually I’ll choose an Earl Grey Cream over a regular Earl Grey. Something about the cream flavoring mellows out the sharpness of the citrus. And I’ve been burned so many times by the overuse of bergamot that I hardly ever give it a whirl.

Enter Adagio’s sample: I bought this because it was a sample size. For not drinking it very often (I mean maybe 6 times a year, tops!), I really didn’t want a bunch of it hanging around.

I had 12 ounces of water and steeped 2 tsp. of this with a half tsp. of Adagio’s Cream Black, using the below preparation parameters. A couple tablespoons of simple syrup and half & half and it turned out really delicious!

The sample size was the right amount, as there are just too many other teas I prefer. When this runs out, I might get another sample to have on hand for those rare times that I reach for an Earl Grey.

1/27/14 Last tea of an Earl Grey tasting. 1tsp/6oz/212F/3min. 1tsp. sugar. 3 min cool. Brand new sample, opened for this tasting. The dry leaf had an intense aroma of frosting – a very sweet vanilla/faint citrus scent. It brewed a very pretty amber gold, and was intensely creamy floral and vanilla in the cup. A vanilla oreo taste much more then citrus. I could taste very little of the base tea, and once the sugar came into play this was candy in a cup. I can see where this would be an enjoyable tea to many, and the flavors were on point and balanced for a cream earl grey, but I personally disliked it intensely.

Visiting my BFF, and we’re having a tea snobbery session. After dividing up the night’s purchases, she offered me a cup of this.

I’m not a huge fan of vanilla, but it didn’t seem super strong so I said I was game. It’s juuuuust on the good side of bearable (for me); enough to sweeten the cup but not quite enough to make it awful.

The Earl Grey comes through very nicely. Overall, this is a pretty good cup! I’m not sure I’d want it every day, but occasionally as a nice complement to dessert (we’re making scones), it’s a great pick.