Cocktails with Earl Grey tea
Earl Grey tea is a flavoured tea, traditionally black, scented with oil of bergamot from the bergamot orange.
Taste profile
A high-toned bergamot-citrus aroma over a tannic, moderately bitter black-tea body, with low acidity and little sweetness.
How it's used
Steeped briefly — a few minutes limits tannin and preserves the citrus aroma — it serves as a tannic, aromatic base liquid or as a small aromatic accent, and is traditionally served without milk when made from Chinese black teas so the bergamot stays in focus.
Substitutes for Earl Grey tea
As a base liquid it is not truly substitutable; as an aromatic accent, another steeped tea (green, oolong, white or rooibos) carrying bergamot aroma from any of the accepted sources — natural oil, dried rind, or natural/synthetic flavouring — works, provided both the tannic tea base and the bergamot scent are kept.
Often confused with
Wild bergamot / bee balm (Monarda) herbal tea
Earl Grey is flavoured with oil from the citrus fruit bergamot (Citrus bergamia); wild bergamot or bee balm (Monarda) is an unrelated North American mint-family plant used for Oswego herbal tea. The two share the name 'bergamot' and a rough aroma but are botanically unrelated.
Plain black tea
