How to Brew Earl Grey Tea: Hot, Iced, With Milk & More
Earl Grey is straightforward to brew, but small changes in water temperature, steeping time, and preparation can produce a noticeably different cup.
The most important place to start is with the tea itself. Traditional Earl Grey pairs tea—usually black tea—with bergamot. B. Fuller’s Sencha Sunrise, by contrast, pairs Japanese green tea with orange peel to create an Earl Grey-like citrus character, so it calls for a gentler approach in the cup.
From there, preparation depends on what you want: hot or iced, plain or with milk, or made into a richer tea latte such as a London Fog. If you're curious about what makes traditional Earl Grey Earl Grey, start with What Is Earl Grey Tea? Bergamot, History, and Flavor. Here, we'll focus on brewing it.
How to Brew Earl Grey Tea
For most black-tea Earl Greys, this is a good place to start:
Tea: 1 teaspoon loose leaf per 8 oz water
Water: 200–205°F
Steep: 3–4 minutes
Bring fresh water to just below boiling, pour it over the tea, and let it steep for three to four minutes. Remove the leaves and taste the tea before adding anything else.
Think of these measurements as a starting point rather than an immutable law of tea. Different teas and blends behave differently, and your own palate gets a vote.
If you want a stronger cup, adding a little more tea is generally better than simply leaving the leaves in the water indefinitely. A longer steep doesn't just intensify the flavors you like; it continues extracting other compounds from the leaves as well.
Why Water Temperature Matters
Brewing tea is an extraction process. Water draws flavor and aroma compounds from the leaves, and heat makes that happen faster. Research on black-tea brewing has found temperature to be an important factor in the extraction of caffeine, phenolics, theaflavins, and thearubigins.
Black and green tea begin with the same plant, Camellia sinensis, but are processed differently. Green and black tea processing produces substantially different chemical profiles. Green tea is heated early to limit oxidation and retains more of its original catechins; during black-tea production, many of those catechins are transformed into compounds including theaflavins and thearubigins, which contribute to its darker color and fuller body.
Hotter water extracts more from both, but maximum extraction isn't necessarily maximum enjoyment. Research on green-tea brewing temperatures shows how temperature changes both extraction and the resulting cup. The practical lesson is simple: match the water to the tea beneath the citrus. A robust black-tea Earl Grey generally responds well to water near boiling; a more delicate green tea such as Sencha Sunrise should be brewed cooler.
If Your Earl Grey Tastes Bitter
If your Earl Grey tastes more bitter or astringent than you'd like, check steeping time and water temperature first.
Start by shortening the steeping time. If the tea is strong enough but still harsher than you prefer, try slightly cooler water. If it's simply too weak, add a little more tea rather than compensating with an excessively long steep.
Adjust one variable at a time—tea, temperature, or time—until you find the cup you like.
How to Make Iced Earl Grey Tea
There are two good ways to make cold Earl Grey: brew it hot and pour it over ice, or let time do the work with a cold brew.
The tradeoff is heat versus time. Hot water extracts tea quickly; cold water works much more slowly, so cold brewing takes hours rather than minutes. Research comparing hot- and cold-water steeping confirms that the extraction of caffeine and catechins is significantly slower in cold water than in hot water.
Method 1: Brew Hot, Then Pour Over Ice
A cup brewed to the right strength when hot can become thin once a glass full of ice begins to melt. The solution is to start with a more concentrated tea.
For one glass:
Tea: 2 teaspoons loose leaf
Hot Water: 4 oz
Water Temperature: 200–205°F for black tea
Steep: 3–4 minutes
Finish: Pour over a full glass of ice
Steep the tea in half the normal amount of hot water, remove the leaves, and pour the concentrated tea over a full glass of ice. As the ice melts, it cools and dilutes the tea to drinking strength.
Use more tea rather than a longer steep to create the extra concentration.
Citrus-forward Earl Greys are especially natural candidates for iced tea. B. Fuller's Clockwork Orange, with its warmer orange character, and Comrade Lenin's Grey, with lemon peel and lemongrass, take that citrus foundation in two distinctly different directions.
Method 2: Cold Brew Earl Grey
Cold brewing flips the equation: less heat, much more time.
Combine Earl Grey and cold water in a covered container, place it in the refrigerator, and let it steep for several hours or overnight before straining the leaves.
As a starting point:
Tea: 1–2 teaspoons loose leaf per 8 oz water
Water: Cold
Steep: 6–12 hours, refrigerated
Finish: Strain and serve cold or over ice
Start tasting toward the earlier end of the range. If you'd like more intensity, give it more time or adjust the amount of tea on your next batch.
Because cold water extracts tea more slowly and differently than hot water, research comparing cold and hot tea extraction has found differences in sensory characteristics that help explain why cold-brewed tea can taste softer and less astringent.
Can You Add Milk to Earl Grey?
Yes. There is no Earl Grey tribunal coming to confiscate your teapot.
Milk works particularly well with fuller-bodied black-tea Earl Greys, softening the tea's more astringent edges and creating a rounder cup while leaving bergamot's distinctive aroma recognizable.
But milk also changes what you notice. A delicate floral Earl Grey may lose some of its subtler character beneath milk, while a richer blend can become even more expressive. That's why there isn't a universal rule that Earl Grey should—or shouldn't—be taken with milk. It depends on the tea and the cup you want.
B. Fuller's Wedding Cake, for example, combines black tea and bergamot with coconut, lavender, and vanilla. Its already rounded character lends itself naturally to milk. Comrade Lenin's Grey sits toward the other end of the spectrum: drinking it plain keeps its crisp lemon, lemongrass, and bergamot more distinct.
If you're still deciding which style suits your palate, Which Earl Grey Is Right for You? compares five B. Fuller's interpretations, from expressive florals and crisp citrus to richer, creamier blends.
And if you like Earl Grey with milk, there is one preparation worth taking a little further.
What Is a London Fog?
Earl Grey works particularly well as a tea latte: a stronger infusion of tea combined with steamed or frothed milk. Add vanilla and you have its best-known variation, the London Fog.
The milk softens the black tea and citrus, while vanilla adds sweetness and warmth around the bergamot. The result is recognizably Earl Grey, but richer and creamier than a conventional cup.
To make one at home:
Earl Grey: 2 teaspoons loose leaf
Hot Water: 4 oz
Steep: 3–4 minutes
Milk: About 4 oz, warmed or steamed
Vanilla: To taste
Brew the Earl Grey stronger than you would for a normal cup, remove the leaves, then add the warmed or steamed milk and vanilla. Sweeten to taste if you'd like. The stronger infusion keeps the character of the tea from disappearing beneath the milk.
You don't have to stop at the traditional London Fog. Leave out the vanilla for a simpler Earl Grey tea latte, or serve the tea, milk, and vanilla over ice for an iced London Fog. The tea itself can provide another source of variation: a floral Earl Grey creates a different latte from a citrus-forward or richer blend.
Wedding Cake's coconut and vanilla make it a particularly natural choice for a richer version, while French Earl Grey takes the drink in a more floral direction.
Whichever version you make, the same brewing principle applies: when you're adding a substantial amount of milk, start with a stronger infusion so the character of the tea remains present in the finished drink.
A Better Cup Starts With the Tea
Brewing instructions are a starting point, not an immutable law. Start with the tea itself, then adjust the amount of tea, water temperature, and time to find the cup you want.
The same principle applies whether you're brewing a traditional black-tea Earl Grey, making iced tea or a London Fog, or trying a more delicate green-tea-and-orange-peel interpretation like Sencha Sunrise.
Brewing instructions can get you to a good first cup. Your palate gets to decide what happens after that.