The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea - Michael Harney [46]
EARL GREY
Though this book is a guide to pure tea, I wanted to include the Earl Grey blend since it is one of the most widely known teas in the Western world. I like to think of it as a gateway tea for novice palates. Though its profile comes as much from added bergamot oil as from tea leaves, the best versions incorporate delicious black teas from all over the world; once you feel comfortable with this blend, you can explore the pure black teas on their own.
Every tea company has its own version and guards its recipes, but traditionally Earl Grey is made from both Indian and Chinese teas, which are blended in a drum with bergamot oil extracted from the citrus peel. (Bergamot is a citrus native to Italy, a pear-shaped orange that tastes very much the way Earl Grey smells.)
The famous English tea company Twinings is credited with inventing the blend. The tea is named after the second Earl Grey. His father, the first Earl Grey (Charles Grey), was a famous (or infamous) general on the British side during the American Revolution. In gratitude for his service, King George III elevated the general into the peerage with the title of Earl. “Grey” is thus a family surname, not a place; that is why the tea’s name is Earl Grey, not Earl of Grey. The second Earl Grey ruled as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1834. The story of the tea goes that while Grey served as prime minister, a Chinese mandarin sent him some scented tea as a gift. When the prime minister ran out of the tea, he asked the Twinings tea company to replicate it. The tale seems a little tall: Bergamot is native to Italy, not China, and although the Chinese flavor their teas with plenty of other fruits and blossoms (see “Dragon Pearl Jasmine,” page 47), I have never seen a Chinese black tea flavored with bergamot.
Legends aside, Earl Grey remains a popular blend. In my family’s version, which we call Earl Grey Supreme, we use some of our favorite black, oolong, and even white teas. Ours has the toasty smoothness of Keemun, the heft of a strong Assam, the briskness and aroma of high-grown Ceylons, the roasted stone fruit flavor and lightness of Formosa Oolong, and the sweetness and beauty of a white Yin Zhen. Each component offers an avenue to discover those teas on their own, each sip of Earl Grey enticing you to explore the enchantments of pure tea.
PUERHS
1. Ban-Zhang 2004 Green Ping Cha
2. Loose-Leafed Black Puerh
3. Tuo Cha 1991 Yunnan Tea Import & Export Corporation
With every other category of tea in this book, tea brokers perform something of a race to get the tea from factory to pot. The aromas and flavors of fresh teas are so volatile, even when vacuum-packed in airtight foil, most teas start to lose their sparkle within a matter of months. Many green teas and oolongs are gone before a year, black teas within a year or two. Puerhs are different. Puerh makers finish making the tea, set the leaves in cakes on shelves, and wait anywhere from two to fifty years before drinking a cup.
Pronounced “POOH-airs,” these are aged teas. Their prolonged resting periods give the teas their own class of extraordinarily earthy flavors. No other teas taste of tobacco, or musk, or even dirt.
I’ve put them last in the book in part because they are so robust; as with any tea tasting, we begin with the lightest tea and end with the strongest. Puerhs also close the book because they are the farthest removed from the pure tea leaf.
Puerhs get their unusual qualities from fermentation, a process no other tea endures. (While it is common to credit fermentation for turning green teas black, that browning process is in fact called “oxidation.”) The science of the puerh fermentation is not much understood outside of China, but we can speculate that fungal and bacterial