This week was quite the whirlwind, with trips to NYC, Baltimore, and Annapolis all taking up a bunch of time. I still had time to go do some research (read: buy a bunch of tea stuff in the name of research) and Lindsay and I got to taste our first attempt to blend an Earl Grey tea. Our process is simple - given a properly cured tea (at least 3 days for Earl Grey), steep for 3 minutes and 5 minutes in 6-8 oz of water, remove the strainer, then let sit for 5 minutes. We vary the amount of tea leaves, temperature, and infuser, and record all of those variations in our notebook for the blend.

If you've been following along on Instagram, you'll recognize the two infusers we used for today's tasting! Aren't they great? Turns out they let a bit more particle matter into the liquid than we like, but otherwise they do a fine job.

So, what was the verdict? Was our first blend ready to rock and roll? No. Not even close. Our original thought was that we had put way too much bergamot oil into the black tea, but that turned out to be woefully incorrect. The flavor of the bergamot for this recipe was just meh. We're getting some food grade pipettes in order to make accurate measurements for the oils and once we've got them we'll be amping up the bergamot and crafting a new recipe. We'll keep at it until we're satisfied, then move on to the next one!

-A