Earl Grey tea, believe it or not, is not its own category of tea. It falls into the category of flavored teas. Flavored teas include any type of tea—white, green, oolong, black—that has been scented or flavored with fruit, flowers, spices, oils, extracts, and natural or artificial flavors.

Earl Grey is one of the most recognized flavored teas in the world. This quintessentially British tea is typically a black tea base flavored with oil from the rind of bergamot orange, a citrus fruit with the appearance and flavor somewhere between an orange and a lemon with a little grapefruit and lime thrown in.