Earl Grey Silver Tips

GCTTB

yes i know…blergamot. freely chosen by yours truly. this doesn’t much taste like an earl grey to me. it’s there…if i focus on it, but for the most part this tastes more like a black breakfast like tea. it might be an age thing or the result of travelling around in the box, but this is nicely subdued and overall a really pleasant cup. there’s a bit of malt there and the brew is smooth. nice!

This tea arrived straight from Canada , from a swap with Jillian – Jillian Thank you so much . It’s crazy , isn’t it? A French tea which did the way France – Canada and is now back to its " home " country … Hello carbon … not to mention the first trip of the original tea which probably came from China :) Anyway, even if I feel a little guilty for being a nasty polluter of the planet I can enjoy this superb Earl Grey.

There is nothing to do for Earl Greys, I ’m definitely a huge Mariage Frères fan . I tasted at least 7 or 8 of their EG and I loved them all. Some more than others but all have in common a perfectly balanced bergamot , balanced and scrupulously respectful for the tea base used to accompany it.

This tea has the distinction of containing tips silver . They usually make tea more delicate and refined. This is actually a lovely tea and refined tea. Still relatively smooth and with the perfectly balanced sweet bergamot which slowly but surely tickle the palate. Very successful.

The liquor is very dark amber .

You can see pictures of this tea here : http://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/earl-grey-silver-tips-mariage-freres/

This is the only Mariage Frères tea I’ve been able to get my hands on here in Canada outside of swaps with other Steepster members. I found it at a William Sonoma store in Vancouver and the only varieties sold there were this and a Darjeeling. Since it was pretty expensive – $35 CD for a tin – I went with this one.

The scent of the tea is distinctly earl grey but with a bit of a flowery note to it. The flavour is also nothing I wouldn’t expect from an earl grey but there are these little hints that this is none the less a high-quality tea – the black tea base is smooth-tasting with just the right amount of robustness and you can tell that they didn’t take the easy way out by using a crappy black tea and then using the bergamot oil to try and disguise it. Here there is just the right amount of citrusy bergamot flavour and while I’m drinking it without milk at the moment I can easily see this been great with milk as well.