Earl
Grey is one of the most recognized flavored teas in the world. Earl
Grey tea is
a tea blend
which has been flavoured with
the addition of oil of bergamot, blue corn flower and white tips. This
quintessentially British tea is typically a black tea base flavored with oil
from the rind of bergamot orange, a citrus fruit with the appearance and flavor
somewhere between an orange and a lemon with a little grapefruit and lime
thrown in.
Earl
Grey tea is a floral and citrus based tea, and was named after Charles Grey,
2nd Earl Grey, British Prime Minister in the 1830s and author of the Reform
Bill of 1832. The Earl reputedly received a gift of an unusual tea flavored
with bergamot oil. According to the Grey family, the tea was specially blended
by a Chinese Mandarin-speaking individual for Lord Grey, to suit the water at Howick
Hall, the family home in Northumberland, using bergamot in particular to offset
the presence of lime in the local water.
Lady
Grey used it to entertain in London as a political hostess, and it proved so
popular that she was asked if it could be sold to others. Earl Grey tea
is a strong fragrant black tea mixed with an unusual addition of oil from the
rind of Bergamot orange. This provides the unique flavor that has made it so
popular. The flavor is a mixture of floral, citrus and bitter with a full
bodied, malty black tea.