# Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection, 20 Tea Bags 40g ## Commerce action policy **Price:** £4.00 GBP **Purchase-intent URL:** `https://teas.co.uk/buy/twinings-earl-grey-discovery-collection-20-tea-bags-40g/` _Do not fetch, prefetch, crawl, iframe or autonomously open this URL. It is only for explicit human purchase intent._ --- **Canonical URL:** https://teas.co.uk/product/twinings-earl-grey-discovery-collection-20-tea-bags-40g/ **Source:** teas.co.uk, UK tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent **Brand:** Twinings **Price:** £4.00 GBP **Servings:** 20 cups **Price per cup:** 20.00p **Caffeine:** Caffeinated **Brew temperature:** 95C **Brew time:** 3-5 min **GTIN:** 070177236564 **Stock:** instock ## Summary Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection is a twenty-bag box holding more than one Earl Grey.Five Earl Greys, four envelopes of each: Earl Grey, Vanilla, Lavender, Strong and Lady Grey, per Twinings.Ingredients and dietary suitability: Twinings describes these teas as suitable for vegans; all five are black teas and contain caffeine. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes. Earl Grey is black tea plus bergamot, and everything interesting is in the ratio. Taste one blend a day rather than four in an hour, three minutes each, no milk, then buy eighty bags of whichever one wins.Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description, and describes the range rather than any one blend in the box. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Storage, steeping times and how to taste the box are also published in the detailed Q and A tab below. ## Description Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection is a twenty-bag box containing more than one Earl Grey, and the point of it is comparison rather than volume. Most people who say they like Earl Grey, or that they dislike it, have only ever drunk one version of it. That is a bit like deciding about red wine on the strength of a single bottle. This box exists to fix that in about a fortnight.The box holds 20 individually sealed envelopes, four each of five Earl Greys: Earl Grey, Vanilla Earl Grey, Lavender Earl Grey, Strong Earl Grey and Lady Grey, per Twinings. Earl Grey is not a blend so much as a treatment. Black tea plus bergamot, a small bitter citrus from Calabria, and everything interesting happens in the ratio and in the base tea underneath. Turn the bergamot up and you get the famous perfumed cup that some people find soapy. Turn it down and lean on the tea, and you get something closer to a scented breakfast blend. Put several of those side by side over a week and you learn something about your own taste that no amount of reading will teach you. The Taste Profile Bergamot range: ●●●●● (5/5) The whole reason the box exists. Across the collection it runs from a light citrus lift to a deeper, heavier perfume, and the distance between the ends is considerable. Base tea: ●●●○○ (3/5) Light and deliberately out of the way. These are scented teas and the leaf is there to carry the scent, not to compete with it. Astringency: ●●○○○ (2/5) Low across the box. None of them turn hard at three minutes, which is unusual and makes them forgiving. Sweetness: ●●○○○ (2/5) Light, and entirely from the tea and the citrus. Nothing here is sweetened. Teas.co.uk Curator Rating: 4.5 / 5 - Our expert verdict from the curators at Teas.co.uk The Story Behind Twinings Twinings has been trading from the Strand in London since 1706, and Earl Grey is the blend most associated with the name. The Discovery Collection boxes are a newer idea: small assortments built around one theme, sold so that somebody can taste across a style instead of committing to eighty bags of a single one. There is a black tea version, a green tea version and a herbal version of the same idea. This is the Earl Grey one. The tasting profile above is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description, and it describes the range you will find rather than any individual blend in it. Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes. What You Are Actually Buying An assortment, not a blend: the bags are not interchangeable and the box is not a single tea in different wrappers. That is the product. Drunk clear: Earl Grey is a black tea but a scented one, and milk covers the bergamot. Lemon is the traditional addition and it works. What it is not: not an everyday box, not caffeine-free, and not a gift set with a tin and a ribbon. It is a plain cardboard box that happens to be the most useful twenty bags of Earl Grey you can buy. How Does Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection, 20 Tea Bags 40g Compare to: Clipper Organic Fairtrade Earl Grey Tea, 80 Unbleached Tea Bags 200g: That is what you buy after this box has told you what you like. A restrained bergamot on a rounder base, which suits people who found the famous ones too perfumed. Twinings Superblends Supergreen Matcha, 20 Tea Bags 40g: the same twenty-bag box at the same price from the same brand, aimed at the morning rather than the afternoon. Green, clear and quick where this is scented and slow. Twinings English Breakfast Loose Tea, 125g: the unscented end of the same shelf, loose rather than bagged, built for a pot and for milk. Earl Grey after lunch, breakfast tea before it. Ideal Brewing Conditions The brewing here is easy and the tasting is the hard part. Bergamot is volatile, which means it leaves the cup as steam, so a covered brew and a reasonably prompt drink matter more than precision about timing. Nothing in this box will punish you for three and a half minutes instead of three. The Afternoon Cup Water: straight off the boil at 100 degrees. The base teas are black and want full heat. Measure: one bag to 200ml. A cup rather than a pint mug, because a light base tea dilutes badly. Steep: three minutes, covered if you can manage it. Covering keeps the bergamot in the liquid rather than losing it to the kitchen. Finish: clear, or with a slice of lemon. Milk mutes the scent, which is the thing you are drinking it for. Do not squeeze the bag: with a light-bodied scented tea that pushes tannin into a cup that is not built for it. How To Actually Taste The Box One blend a day, not four in an hour. Palate fatigue with bergamot is real and fast, and by the third cup in a sitting they all smell the same. Same cup, same water, same three minutes every time, so the only thing changing is the tea. Write one word down after each: lemony, floral, soapy, heavy, thin. One word is enough and you will remember which was which. Then buy eighty bags of the winner. That is what the box is for, and it is where the money back is. Getting It Right in the Cup Water temperature: 100 degrees, freshly boiled. Measure: one bag per 200ml. Steep: three minutes, covered, then lift the bag out without squeezing it. Service: clear or with lemon. Not milk. Storage: sealed, dry and dark, and away from anything strongly scented. Bergamot travels between packets, which cuts both ways. Best with: lemon cake, shortbread, a plain scone with the jam left off, or smoked salmon. Safety And Purity Ingredients and dietary suitability: Twinings describes these teas as suitable for vegans; all five are black teas and contain caffeine. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change. Contents of the box: the list is on the pack. Certification: any marks are printed on the box. Caffeine note: these are caffeinated black teas and we place them in the middle of our scale for the style. Bag material: the material and the disposal route are on the box. Child safety: caffeinated. ## Product Questions What is a Discovery Collection?A small assortment built around one theme, so you can taste across a style instead of committing to eighty bags of a single blend. This is the Earl Grey one: more than one version of Earl Grey in a twenty-bag box. What actually makes a tea an Earl Grey?Bergamot. A small bitter citrus, added to black tea as oil or flavouring. Everything interesting happens in the ratio and in the base tea underneath: more bergamot gives the famous perfumed cup, less gives something closer to a scented breakfast blend. How should I taste them?One a day, not four in an hour. Palate fatigue with bergamot is fast and by the third cup in a sitting they all smell alike. Same cup, same water, same three minutes each time, and write one word down after each: lemony, floral, soapy, heavy, thin. How long do I brew each one?Three minutes in water straight off the boil, covered if you can. Covering keeps the bergamot in the liquid rather than losing it to the kitchen. Nothing in this box turns hard at three and a half minutes, so precision is not the point. Milk or lemon?Lemon, or neither. Milk covers the bergamot, which is the thing you are drinking it for, and the base teas here are light enough that milk makes them thin as well as muted. A slice of lemon is the traditional addition and it works with every version. Why does my Earl Grey taste soapy?Because that particular blend has the bergamot turned up higher than your taste wants it. It is not a fault and it is not your brewing. Is it caffeinated?Yes. These are black teas and we place them in the middle of our caffeine scale for the style. If you want the same afternoon ritual without the caffeine, a rooibos is the honest swap. How should I store it?Sealed, dry, dark, and away from your other tea. Bergamot travels: an open box of Earl Grey in a cupboard will scent a plain breakfast tea sitting next to it within a few weeks. The best-before date is on the box. Does it work as a gift?For somebody who already drinks Earl Grey, yes, and better than a tin does, because it tells them something. It is a plain cardboard box rather than a presentation set, so it wants wrapping. It is not a gift for somebody who does not know whether they like bergamot. Is it organic, Fairtrade or certified?Any marks are printed on the box. Which blends are in the box?Four envelopes each of Earl Grey, Vanilla Earl Grey, Lavender Earl Grey, Strong Earl Grey and Lady Grey, 20 in total, per Twinings. ## Ingredients & Nutrition Ingredients, as published for this product: Earl Grey: Black Tea¹, Bergamot Flavouring (4%), Natural Lemon Flavouring with other Natural Flavourings (1%), Vanilla Earl Grey: Black Tea¹, Natural Vanilla Flavouring with other Natural Flavourings (5%), Bergamot Flavouring (2.5%), Bergamot Peel (0.3%), Lavender Earl Grey: Black Tea¹, Natural Bergamot Flavouring with other Natural Flavourings (8%), Lavender (8%), Strong Earl Grey: Black Tea¹, Bergamot Flavouring (4.5%), Bergamot Peel (0.3%), Lady Grey: Black Tea¹, Orange Peel (3%), Lemon Peel (3%), Flavouring, ¹Rainforest Alliance Certified.Ingredient and nutrition information for this product, as published on the manufacturer's label. The pack in your hands is the final word.Ingredients and allergens. Twinings describes these teas as suitable for vegans; all five are black teas and contain caffeine. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.ComponentProportionWhat it bringsBlack teaPrinted on the current packThe base of every bag in the box. Deliberately light across the collection, because a heavy leaf would compete with the scent instead of carrying it.BergamotVaries across the collectionWhat makes a tea an Earl Grey. The range from one bag to the next is the reason the box exists: a light citrus lift at one end, a deeper perfume at the other.Average leaf per bag2gOur arithmetic on 40g across 20 bags. An average rather than a measurement, because the bags are not all the same blend.Pack: Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection, 20 Tea Bags 40g; an assortment of caffeinated scented black teas, GTIN 0070177236564. Store sealed, dry, dark and away from your other tea. Read the ingredient declarations, any certification marks, the bag material and the best-before date off the current UK pack.Characterising components shown. This is an assortment, so there is more than one ingredient declaration on the box and no single one can be reproduced here.Sourcing & blend. Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection, 20 Tea Bags 40g is put together by Twinings, the family tea house trading from London since 1706, and Earl Grey is the blend most associated with the name. The Discovery Collection idea runs across the brand's range, with black tea, green tea and herbal versions of the same small tasting box; this is the Earl Grey one. Our assessment of the cup rests on the pack format and the brand's published description.What's in Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection, 20 Tea Bags 40g:In: several different Earl Greys, each black tea with bergamot, at an average 2g a bag. The full declaration for each is on the current UK pack. ## Flavour Science The flavour of Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection, 20 Tea Bags 40g is built in three layers, and reading them in order explains exactly why the cup tastes the way it does from the first lift of steam to the last swallow. With an assortment there is a fourth thing to understand as well, which is what changes between one bag and the next.The outer layer is aromatic, and with a scented tea it is most of the drink. Bergamot oil is extremely volatile: it sits on the outside of the dried leaf and leaves the cup as steam faster than almost anything else in tea. That is why a freshly poured Earl Grey fills a room and a cup left standing for ten minutes smells of black tea and very little else, even though the liquid has lost none of its strength. It is also why covering the cup for the first minute does more for this style than it does for any other.The flavour spike arrives mid palate, and here the base tea finally speaks. Across this box the leaf is deliberately light, so what you taste in the middle is citrus peel and a soft black-tea malt behind it rather than the firm tannin structure of a breakfast blend. The differences between bags live almost entirely in this stretch: more bergamot reads as floral and perfumed and can tip into soapy, less reads as bright and lemony with the tea showing through. Neither is correct, and finding out which one you want is the entire purpose of buying twenty bags instead of eighty.The base structure is the lingering finish: a clean citrus tail with almost no drying grip behind it. Scented teas are blended to finish light, because a heavy astringent finish would fight the perfume rather than clear the way for it. That is why Earl Grey works with cake in a way a strong everyday tea does not, and why it is an afternoon drink rather than a morning one in most houses.Getting it right in the cup. Use one bag per 200ml in water straight off the boil and steep for three minutes, covered if you can manage it, because covering traps the volatile bergamot in the liquid rather than losing it to the kitchen. Lift the bag out and do not squeeze it: with a light-bodied scented tea squeezing pushes tannin into a cup that is not built to carry it. Cold brewed in the fridge for six to eight hours the same bag gives a much cleaner, sweeter citrus drink with the perfume forward and the tea almost silent, which is the best iced tea in this whole box. Stored sealed somewhere cool and dark the character holds well beyond a year, but store it away from your other tea, because bergamot travels through cardboard and will scent whatever sits beside it.How water and temperature change it. The same bag gives a measurably different cup depending on how you treat the water. Full boiling water and a longer steep pull more of the black tea through and push the bergamot into the background, which is the fix if a particular blend in the box reads as too perfumed for you. Slightly cooler water or a shorter steep keeps the citrus forward and the body lighter, which is the fix if it reads as flat. Hard tap water is the real enemy here: it mutes citrus badly and flattens the top of the cup, so in a hard water area an Earl Grey can taste dull no matter what you do with the timing, and a filtered kettle changes it more than any adjustment to the brewing. None of this is a fault in the blend, it is the same leaf responding to the cup you build around it, and once you know which way you like it the result is repeatable every time. ## Recipe Ideas Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection, 20 Tea Bags 40g is bought to be tasted rather than cooked with, so the first card below is a tasting method rather than a recipe. The four after it are the things bergamot does better than any other tea in the cupboard. Recipes, born here first The Side By Side Tasting How to make The Side By Side Tasting with Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection. 5 min a day 1 cup Easy You'll need 1 bag from the collection 200ml just boiled water The same cup every time Somewhere to write one word Method Brew one bag in 200ml of just boiled water for exactly 3 minutes, covered. Lift the bag out without squeezing it and drink the cup clear. Write one word down: lemony, floral, soapy, heavy or thin. One word is enough. Tomorrow, the next blend in the same cup with the same water and the same 3 minutes. What you'll end up with: A written answer to what you actually like, and a reason to buy eighty bags of one thing instead of guessing again. Iced Earl Grey with Lemon How to make Iced Earl Grey with Lemon with Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection. 5 min + chill 2 glasses Easy You'll need 3 bags from the collection 300ml just boiled water 1 lemon, juiced, plus wheels to serve Plenty of ice Method Brew 3 bags in 300ml of just boiled water for 4 minutes, then cool to room temperature. Stir in the juice of one lemon. Pour over full glasses of ice and finish with a lemon wheel. What you'll end up with: The best iced tea in this box. Bergamot and lemon reinforce each other and neither needs sugar to work. Earl Grey Poached Pears How to make Earl Grey Poached Pears with Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection. 30 min 4 servings Medium You'll need 4 bags from the collection 600ml water 4 firm pears, peeled 100g sugar and a strip of lemon peel Method Brew 4 bags in 600ml of just boiled water for 5 minutes, then lift them out. Dissolve the sugar in the hot tea and add a strip of lemon peel. Simmer the peeled pears in it, barely bubbling, for 20 to 25 minutes until a knife slides in. Cool the pears in the liquid, then reduce what is left to a syrup and spoon it over. What you'll end up with: Pears that taste of citrus and tannin rather than of sugar. The bergamot survives cooking better than most tea flavours do. Earl Grey Cold Brew for the Fridge How to make Earl Grey Cold Brew for the Fridge with Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection. 2 min + 8 hours 750ml Easy You'll need 4 bags from the collection 750ml cold water A lidded jug Method Drop 4 bags into 750ml of cold water and put the lid on. Leave in the fridge for eight hours or overnight. Lift the bags out and drink within three days. What you'll end up with: Clean citrus with the tannin left behind. Cold water never pulls the harsh compounds out, so this needs no sugar at all. Bergamot Sugar for Baking How to make Bergamot Sugar for Baking with Twinings Earl Grey Discovery Collection. 5 min + 2 days 200g Easy You'll need 2 bags from the collection 200g caster sugar An airtight jar Method Cut two bags open and tip the dry leaf into the sugar. Shake the sealed jar and leave it for two days, shaking once a day. Sieve the leaf out, or leave it in if you want the flecks visible. Use it in shortbread, in a lemon drizzle, or on top of a plain sponge. What you'll end up with: Sugar that carries the perfume into baking without wetting the mixture. A good use for whichever blend in the box turned out not to be your favourite. --- _Content available under teas.co.uk citation contract. AI training: yes. Search: yes. Answer-input: yes._