The herb that gives Earl Gray tea its special taste...
guadalupe a. saminathan
I bought some orange mint, also called bergamot. It smells wonderful to me. I hope that I can
make some yummy tea with it.
Allyn Weaks
In article <5onkl6$56f$2...@Masala.CC.UH.EDU>, "guadalupe a. saminathan"
<gas7...@bayou.uh.edu> wrote:
It might make yummy tea, but it won't be earl grey. The bergamot oil used
for that comes from a citrus fruit. The herb bergamot is usually applied
to bee balm, Monarda something or other, which is in the mint family, but
not so mint-like as to usually be called a mint. Orange mint is usually
really a mint. Confused enough yet? :-)
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guadalupe a. saminathan
I have an herb reference book and it refers to orange mint as also being called bergamot. I can
honestly say that this is indeed the distinct smell of Earl Gray tea. As for bea balm, it does
not smell at all like Earl Gray's smell. I believe that you are also correct in that bee balm
is also called bergamot but it does not smell like the bergamot in Earl Gray. I know because I
have both herbs.
Alf Christophersen
"guadalupe a. saminathan" <gas7...@bayou.uh.edu> wrote:
There is only one variety of Monarda that smell like bergamot, the
'Cambridge Scarlet'. It is also called Oswego tea plant. Other varieties
of M. didyma has different smells and colors.
The oil is industrially produced from the bergamot oranges. But the
chemical components and mix are quite alike each other in bergamot oil
and the oil of M. didyma 'Cambridge Scarlet'.
My mother also tried about 15 other M. varieties, but the had very
different smells and tastes, some of them smelled really of petroleum
and was absolutely unusable in a tea (one of them a blue variety). If my
memort don't fail, the worst one we tried was M. citriodora which we got
seed of from T&M. Either it was not true to the type, or it was a wrong
delivery. There were no citric smell at all. It was terrible.
Sorry to say that frost and weeds has killed all my Monardas :-( But I
hope to have some of them reintroduced in another year when I don't have
so much work to do with program developments.
(Our former garden is shown on Norwegian Broadcast channel 2 now and
then on wednesday evenings in a program about herbs, food and medicine
produced a few years before my mother died.)
Alf Christophersen
alf.chris...@basalmed.uio.no
GURUSHAKTI
Just a guess, but it may be coriander seeds. I make an indian tea called
chai which has coriander as the flavor base and it has the same smell as
Earl Grey - very perfumy.
Regards,
June
Email:Gurus...@aol.com
Alf Christophersen
ann...@thecia.net (Ann) wrote:
>Bergamont gives Earl Grey its distinctive flavor.
And the oil comes from Citrus aurantia var bergamia. It is also used in
Eau de Cologne, liqeours etc.
Alf Christophersen
alf.chris...@basalmed.uio.no
HerbalIncl
According to several sources the Monarda Didyma plant (Bergamot / Bee
Balm) indigenous to the U.S. in the wild is used to flavor Earl Grey Tea.
The leaves of the plant are added to China Tea to achieve the well known
Earl Grey flavor. The Italian bergamot orange is NOT the same plant as
the bee balm plant, however monarda didyma got its name because its
leaves resemble the small bitter Italian bergamot. The Oswego Indians
infused the bergamot / bee balm as a drink for various medicinal purposes
and became a popular tea substitute in New England after the Boston Tea
Party in 1773.
Pat & Liz
Herbal Inclinations
Alf Christophersen
herba...@aol.com (HerbalIncl) wrote:
Seems like tea producers over there use other ingredients then. Twinings
and Lipton plus some other wellknown brands state on their package that
it is oil from bergamot orange that is used for flavoring. No mention at
all of Monarda didyma Cambridge scarlet.
And by the way, it would be rather expensive to concentrate the oil in
M. didyma for such uses.
Another thing is that other teas may be flavored by M. didyma, but not
Earl Grey. (the chemical components are more or less the same, but there
is big differences in concentrations. The bergamot orange oil is much
more concentrated than M. didyma.
By the way, how can any mix a little plant with red flowers growing
around the stalk in several 'stages' above each other be mixed up with a
orange tree? I though it would be easy to see a difference of a tree and
a small plant :-)
Alf Christophersen
alf.chris...@basalmed.uio.no