Tasting Notes: Rich caramel & clean citrus
Ingredients: Organic Kumaon Black, Organic Bergamot Oil
Infusion Suggestions:
Steep 1 0.5 Tbsp/2.5 g | 8 oz | 210° F | 3.5 min
Steep 2 8 oz | 210° F | 5 min
Contains Caffeine
Our rendition of the world’s most popular blend is made with a light black tea that has sweet notes of caramel, enhanced by the citrus zip of bergamot oil.
Tasting Notes: The base tea in this classic black blend is our single-origin Organic Kumaon Black, a wonderfully balanced black with natural notes of rich caramel and bittersweet cocoa. The bergamot oil, made from the rinds of a small orange-like fruit native to the Mediterranean, builds on the black tea foundation by adding a clean and slightly sour citrus twist. The result is a divinely fresh cuppa that’s great hot or cold.
Recipe Formulation: The key to a good Earl Grey loose-leaf blend is a solid black tea and pure bergamot oil. Bergamot oil can be intensely aromatic, sometimes bordering on sharp, so it took us a few trials to determine the exact amount of essential oil that would lift the rich notes of the black tea without dominating the blend. After several rounds, we landed on this deeply satisfying recipe.
Impact: The goal for our line of blends is to find new ways to showcase the teas made by our Indian and Nepali partners. With this blend, one of our signature black teas from Kumaon, an emerging Himalayan tea region where we started our company, gets a royal citrus treatment, entering the pantheon of the world’s most drunk blends. Today, more than 450 farmers in the village of Champawat produce 30,000 pounds of organic tea annually. Each year the number is growing thanks, in part, to Young Mountain Tea customers. Kumaon tea farmers have a unique partnership with their government, pioneering a new sustainable, community-based model of tea together. In that model, abandoned land with once-rich soils are being rejuvenated by certified organic tea bushes, and Kumaon farmers are using these plants to make new specialty teas that earn them 5-10 times the rates of the average Indian tea farmer. In short, Kumaon is a model for how tea can uplift Himalayan communities. Kumaon is also near and dear to our hearts, because it was here that Raj, our founder, was inspired to launch Young Mountain Tea. Plus, we are working with the farmers there to launch a tea factory that they will soon own, helping increase their livelihoods. 1% of the sales of this tea and all other offerings on our website go towards supporting this future farmer-owned tea factory. Learn more.
Packaging: Our commitment to sustainability means we offer our teas in several types of packaging: