First western tea review on this blog! When I first started out on my tea journey, I was a naive elitist who thought that good tea can only come from Asia, and may have judged people who drink bagged tea and claim that 'they like tea'. I eventually stopped gatekeeping tea, for in the end, it's literally just water w/ leaf.
This tea was likely one of the reasons why I changed my mind. My previous experience with western teas were in crappy Lipton teabags, and I thought that it wasn't fair to compare Lipton tea with my more expensive Chinese tea and claim that all western tea sucked.
Brewing
I brewed the tea western-style, using 3g of leaves for 200ml of water. I waited for the water to boil, and waited 20~ seconds before pouring. Steeped for around 3-4 minutes before serving. One of the things I appreciate about western teas is that there isn't a need for any convoluted gongfu-style brewing with 5 different teawares, I could have easily brewed and drank this from the same cup and it would have tasted it just as good ( source: myself ). Though, I used a two-cup and strainer setup as I didn't really enjoy biting into tea leaves when I drank.
Tea
Harney & Sons do not skimp on their bergamot ( unlike Lipton ), and the moment the hot water touches the leaves, you can already smell the spicy bergamot permeating the air. Even after the 4 minutes of brewing time, the signature scent is still strong. The color is a luxurious gold-ish brown, and its honestly the color I think of when I think 'tea'.
The taste of the tea confused me the first time I drank it. I had numerous run-ins with other Earl Greys before, but none had such a strong bergamot taste to it and I was confused to what was making my tea 'spicy'. Though, it is an acquired taste, and the more I drank it the less I thought of 'spice' and the more I thought of 'warm', as you can feel a mild edge at the back of your throat.
It's now my go-to tea when I want to work on something! With how easy to brew it is, I find myself reaching for this tea often whenever I have a class and I'm feeling sleepy. Verdict: 3.5 out of 5!
