The foil-sealed tea bags each contain just shy of 2g of tea. The box claims a net weight of 33g in 18 bags, which makes for 1.8g of tea.

The dry tea bag smells strongly of bergamot. It also smells fresher than most other Earl Grey, like freshly cut fruit. This may be the fruitiest-smelling Earl Grey I've tried.

The steeping tea is even more fragrant, smelling again like fresh fruit. I'm not getting much from the tea, though. There's a bit of earthiness, but so far, that's about it. Any maltiness or even tannic aroma is swallowed up by the bergamot.

A sip of the tea is less bitter more lemon than I was expecting. The ingredients and promotional copy claim that the flavoring is pure bergamot, but I would have guessed a citrus blend. It's definitely good, just not exactly the profile I associate with bergamot. The tea flavor is there, just really hard to pick out. It's more pronounced than in Bigelow's Earl Grey, for example, but still very muted. I like my Earl Grey to taste more like tea. There's a medium astringency, but little bitterness and less malt. The astringency and lemony citrus flavors combine to remind me of sumac berries. It's quite good and more complex than Bigelow or Twinings, but I'd like a more flavorful base tea.

The bergamot flavor survives multiple steeps.

Stash sells a box on its website for $3.95 and I paid a bit less in the store. It's not a bargain, but reasonable. In the same price range and with similar availability, I prefer Bigelow's Steep brand of Earl Grey. At just under $4 per ounce, there are much better loose leaf offerings.

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