Most of us in the Western world take great pleasure from a fragrant cup of flavoured tea. They awaken and delight our senses with their complex mix of aromas and tastes.
Let’s start by how flavoured teas are made. The base tea used is usually either black tea or green tea. This tea should not have a taste too strong so that it achieves a good balance of aroma and taste with the flavours. Then the flavouring ingredients are added and mixed with the tea either manually or in a blending drum.
When it comes to ingredients, those could be spices, dried fruits, dried flowers, dried herbs, and natural or artificial oils. There are so many combinations possible.
Now let’s move to briefly presenting the most popular flavoured teas: Earl Grey – Masala Chai – Jasmine green tea.
Earl Grey
It is claimed to be the most popular flavoured tea. And I cannot agree more with that – I just love this tea.
According to various sources, the tea was named after Britain’s Prime Minister Charles Earl Grey (1830-1834) and it was a gift made by Chinese officials to him. However, there is no clear evidence of that. You can find out more about the history of this fascinating tea in this article.
At origin, Earl Grey tea was black tea flavoured with bergamot oil. This oil is extracted from the fruit of the bergamot orange trees. 95% of these trees grow in the Italian region of Calabria. The role of the bergamot oil was to enhance the taste of a lower quality tea. Since bergamot oil is very expensive, nowadays, more affordable citrus oils are mostly used for flavouring.
In addition to the original Earl Grey, new variants have been developed over the teas: Lady Grey, Lavender Earl Grey, French Earl Grey, Russian Earl Grey, or Earl Grey green tea.
My 3 words to describe Earl Grey: fragrant – refreshing – delectable.
Masala Chai
For me, Masala Chai (meaning ‘spiced tea’) is the irresistible combination of tea, spices and milk. I love it as much as Earl Grey.
This beverage has a relatively recent history. It started being consumed in the early 1900s after the Indian Tea Association began to promote Indian tea consumption within India. But because black tea was very expensive at that time, vendors added milk, spices and sugar to be able to offer a more affordable but tasty drink. After the CTC method of tea processing started to take hold, black tea became cheaper and masala chai soared in popularity in India. Then, unsurprisingly, human migration spread this popular beverage all over the world – and we couldn’t be happier.
The recipe to make this blend varies in terms of the mixture of spices used (cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, pepper, star anise) and the preparation method. At origin, buffalo milk was used. Today, we can enjoy it with any type of milk. I love it with oat milk and honey-sweetened. In some recipes, other ingredients are added at the end: chocolate, cocoa powder, chilli flakes, vanilla or peppercorn.
My 3 words to describe Masala Chai: creamy – exquisite – awakening.
Jasmine tea
If masala chai has a relatively short history, the opposite can be said about jasmine tea. It has been produced in China in the past 1000 years. Its place of origin is the Fujian province.
This tea can be made as either loose leaf tea or rolled in pearls. Not only great skill but also patience are required to make the tea blend, as you can see from this video.
To make the tea pearls, first, the tea leaves are rolled and wrapped in tissue and then dried. Afterwards, they are mixed with fresh jasmine flowers and left to absorb the aroma and flavour for various hours. The mixture is turned regularly to avoid too much heating building up. To make about 100 kg of tea, 100 kg of flowers are needed.
It’s a pleasure to watch the tea pearls unfurl in a glass teapot.
Although the original recipe involved green tea as the base and it is still the most popular, today other types of tea are also used – black, oolong, white.
My 3 words to describe Jasmine green tea: refreshing – fragrant – cleansing.
I believe that what sets these popular teas apart from other flavoured teas are not only the aroma and taste, but also the cultural sentiment associated with each of these teas.
