Pomelo Oolong: Grandfather of Earl Grey?

[mbanu]

I've recently learned about a type of tea popular in certain parts of China, where oolong is stuffed into a hollowed-out pomelo and allowed to age.

Might this have been the style of tea the Earl was trying to have replicated by his English tea blenders?

During the time period when Earl Grey was developed, I believe that Europeans had yet to make a distinction between a heavy oxidized oolong and a black tea.

Thoughts?

Edited January 2, 2011 by mbanu (log)

[nakji]

No idea, but that certainly is an interesting picture. Is the pomelo dried out by the time the tea is ready?

[Will]

My understanding is that these are usually kept for aging tea for medicinal purposes (mostly to help with digestion, I believe). The tea probably ages differently in here than it would in a tighter canister. I am not sure to what extent the oils from the pomelo make it into the tea (probably partially depends if it's skin in or skin out).

I have seen these a few times, but I highly doubt that they would have been exported or that westerners would have come into contact with tea stored / aged this way. This is totally conjecture, but I kind of doubt that it has anything to do with Earl Grey.

Side note... a tea acquaintance has actually tried doing this:

http://gingkobay.blogspot.com/2010/04/making-tea-grapefruit-step-by-step.html

Edited January 3, 2011 by Will (log)

[mbanu]

Just a thought. I suppose the idea that a Chinese official would send a Hakka medicinal tea as a gift does seem like a bit of an odd story.

Apocryphally, the blend was originally released by tea-maker George Charlton of 48 Charing Cross as "Earl Grey's Mixture" in 1836, and bought up afterwards by Jacksons of Picadilly (who was then bought by its main competitor in the Earl Grey trade, Twinings, in 1990).

However, the idea of adding bergamot oil to tea was a trick of earlier origin.

Here, for instance, is a helpful hint from 1824:

To render Tea at 5s. a pound equal to Tea at 12s. -

The cheapest and most expensive teas are all the leaves of the same tree, at least they should be so, and if there were no sloe-leaves nor privet-leaves, they would be so. The high flavour, therefore, of some of the sorts of tea, and the want of flavour in others, must arise from the manner of preparing them, and must be in some measure artificial. It follows, that if we can discover any fine flavoured substance, and add it to the tea in a proper manner, so as to make it agree and harmonise with the original flavour, we shall be able to improve low-priced and flavourless tea, into a high priced article of fine flavour. The flavouring substance found to agree best with the original flavour of tea, is the oil of bergamot; by the proper management of which you may produce from the cheapest teas the finest flavoured bloom, hyson, gunpowder, and cowslip. There are two ways of managing the bergamot. Purchase at the perfumers some of the perfumed pieces of wood, which they call bergamot fruit. Keep one such piece in your canister, and it will flavour the tea in the same way as a Tonquin bean flavours snuff. If the canister be a small one, the flavour perhaps would be too strong; in that case you may chip the bergamot fruit in pieces, and put only a little bit among your tea. Or procure a small phial of the oil of bergamot; take some of the smallest of your tea and add it to a few drops of the oil, till you form a sort of paste, which is to be carefully mixed with the whole tea, in proportion to its quantity and the degree of flavour you like best. If you make the flavour too strong, you have always on easy remedy, namely, by adding more unfavoured tea. When it is thus improved, it is often sold at 18s. and a guinea, a pound. Cowslip tea has been as high as 32s.

I suppose then that another alternative might have simply been that the Earl was cheap? Interesting that the teas mentioned are all green... (maybe the use of non-green tea was the key distinction in Earl Grey's Mixture?)

I believe that Twinings claim to fame in regards to Earl Grey is that they were the first to make use of Indian tea in their mixtures.

Edited January 3, 2011 by mbanu (log)

[mbanu]

Another oddity... In the early 1800s, 48 Charing Cross was the home of "Thorpe & Grey", grocer and tea-dealer. I'd be curious to know what Mr. Grey's first name was...