Farmer Brothers apparently uses the same relatively rich base tea as for their plain black offering, which similarly brews up dark and tastes stronger than most brand-name bagged teas. As such, you can pluck a bag or three off your hotel's or conference's tea table with confidence you'll get a passable, perhaps even rather good, product. The overall flavor is very smooth and agreeable, without excessive bitterness or detectable artifices. The aftertaste lingers for many minutes, but tolerably, since it doesn't differ much from the tea itself.

Just don't expect the bergamot to jump out much. It's noticeable, in taste as well as aromas from dry bag, wet bag and in-cup. But if the average bergamot level were 5/10 in most bagged Earl Greys, this offering would be about a 2-3—substantially weaker than a black tea this rich deserves. If Farmer Brothers would crank up the oil level a few notches, or infuse a higher-quality, stronger-tasting version, they actually could contend for one of the best bagged Earl Greys around.

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Comments:

Alex Zorach wrote: on April 19th, 2018

I notice there's a huge degree of variation in how much bergamot vs. how much tea I taste in commercial Earl Grey blends. It ranges from "hint of bergamot" to "I can't even taste any black tea in this", and with the exception of those nice companies that sell a separate offering labeled either "double bergamot" or "light bergamot" or something similar, I usually have no idea what to expect going in.

I tend to like the ones though like you describe this one being, where the base tea is very strong and the flavoring is more subtle, especially if the base tea has qualities that I like. I recently discovered Ahmad's "Special Blend with Earl Grey" which is exactly this way for me...definitely my favorite earl grey type blend I've had yet.

Tchuggin' Okie wrote: on May 20th, 2018

Thanks, Alex. My impression of the great variability of bergamot strength matches yours so far, which is encouraging in a bass-ackwards way, since your tea palate is much more refined and experienced than mine. I had a good chuckle at your "I can't even taste any black tea in this" comment. :-) My favorite EG tea so far—Stash Double Bergamot—might nearly qualify as such for you. That tea is absolutely loaded with it.

For a food-service tea, then, you might like this Farmer Brothers offering, if you have to have a bagged Earl Grey in a pinch. The bergamot is just too subtle for me (personal preference).

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