Grocery store brand Earl Grey tea

A few weeks ago, I saw something new sitting there among the teas at my local Publix: boxes of Publix brand flavored teas. This was intriguing to me. Now I'm quite loyal to "my" grocery store, and I often buy their store brands of everything from flour to aluminum foil to frozen veggies. But flavored tea? I left them on the shelf that day, though, because the name brand teas were actually cheaper, and out of (tightwad) principle I refuse to ever pay more for a store brand than a name brand. That's just wrong.

Last week, I was ready for a cup of afternoon tea at the office and reached for a sample of Bigelow's Earl Grey I had received from a friend. I like Earl Grey and go through times of drinking it all the time, then getting tired of it for a while, then drinking it again. This was one of the dry spells for my Earl Grey habit, and that cup of tea struck me as sooooo good! So when I spotted the Publix brand teas on sale at the store that evening, I decided to try the Earl Grey.

Although I like the taste of Earl Grey, I absolutely love the fragrance of Earl Grey. That bergamot flavoring has such a distinct, unique fragrance, quite unlike any other tea. As soon as I opened the box, that wonderful scent wafted up - a good sign. And it made a very nice cup of tea as well. If the Bigelow Earl Grey tea bag was a 5, this was a 4.5. (And I am going to feel really stupid if I find out one day that Bigelow is one of those companies that repackages its product, putting a different label on this tea for the grocery store.) Of course loose tea would always be my preference, but for teabag tea for the office, I'm quite happy with the Publix Earl Grey.