What Is Earl Grey? Britain's Bergamot Tea, and How It Turns Up in Bubble Tea

Earl Grey is black tea flavoured with oil from the bergamot, a citrus fruit grown on the coast of Calabria in southern Italy. The UK Tea & Infusions Association (UKTIA) says the bergamot oil gives the tea its "perfumed aroma and flavour". Twinings says it first blended the tea in 1831, for the Prime Minister Charles Grey, the second Earl Grey.

On bubble tea menus it usually turns up as Earl Grey milk tea.

What is Earl Grey tea?

Earl Grey is a flavoured tea: not a tea plant, not a region, but a blend. The UKTIA lists it with jasmine and Rose Congou among the flavoured and scented teas, and notes that "the popular English Breakfast and Earl Grey blends are made from black tea leaves".

Traditionally the base was black China tea, in the UKTIA's words. Twinings says a traditional Earl Grey starts from a Darjeeling or Ceylon black tea, flavoured with bergamot oil. The oil is cold pressed from the bergamot's peel.

Why is it called Earl Grey?

Because it was blended for an Earl Grey. In Twinings' own words, "It was invented at our shop on the Strand in 1831 at the behest of the Prime Minister, Charles Grey, the second Earl Grey. And we named it after him." Charles Grey was Prime Minister from 1830 to 1834, and GOV.UK's page on past prime ministers notes: "Earl Grey tea is named after him".

Where does bergamot come from?

Almost entirely from one stretch of Italian coast. Bergamot is grown almost only in the province of Reggio Calabria, from Villa San Giovanni on the Strait of Messina round to Monasterace on the Ionian coast, and the first intensive plantation was made on the Reggio coast in 1750. The Italian paper Il Post describes the fruit as round, about the size of a lemon, between green and yellow, with a bitter taste and a very intense scent.

The oil has its own protection: "Bergamotto di Reggio Calabria, olio essenziale" was registered as a Protected Designation of Origin on 15 March 2001, for the essential oil only.

What does Earl Grey taste like?

Like black tea with a citrus perfume. The tea trade's own description is the bergamot's "perfumed aroma and flavour" over a black tea base, and Twinings notes that its blends differ in "levels of zest, fragrance and type of black tea".

Where does Earl Grey sit on a bubble tea menu?

With the milk teas. Because Earl Grey is a black tea, UK bubble tea menus list it as Earl Grey milk tea, and US bubble tea suppliers' recipe titles pair it with milk and lavender. Where the UKTIA calls jasmine "light, delicate", it calls Earl Grey "perfumed", and that perfume sits on a black tea, the tea milk teas are built on.

We make no Earl Grey drink. Earl Grey sits in the family our Milk Tea Kit belongs to: its classic and brown sugar milk teas are made from instant black tea powders. For the other black tea behind milk teas, see what is Assam tea.

Questions people ask

Is Earl Grey a black tea?

Yes. The UKTIA says the popular English Breakfast and Earl Grey blends "are made from black tea leaves". The bergamot oil is the flavouring, not the tea.

Try a milk tea

All three of our kits are in bubble tea kits for home, four drinks a box. Sign up to our emails for 15% off your entire order.