Chocolate and earl grey
A black tea scented with bergamot, and the bergamot is what makes it the most-used tea in pâtisserie. Citrus oil without citrus juice solves the problem citrus normally creates.
Earl Grey is black tea flavoured with oil of bergamot, a bitter citrus grown mainly in Calabria. The aroma is floral, sharply citrus and slightly medicinal, and it is carried in an oil rather than in a juice.
That distinction is the practical point. Citrus juice brings water and acid, both of which are problems in a ganache — acid can break an emulsion and water is chocolate's enemy. Bergamot oil brings the aroma with neither, which is why Earl Grey infused into cream is one of the standard pâtisserie ganache flavours and lemon juice is not.
The tea's own tannin also matters. It adds a slight astringency that stops a ganache being merely rich, and it means Earl Grey works better with milk and dark milk chocolate than with a heavily tannic dark bar, where the astringencies compound.
The principle
Citrus aroma with no water and no acid. It is the pâtisserie solution to a flavour that is otherwise hard to get into chocolate.
Pairings
Bergamot's sharp floral citrus cuts milk chocolate's sweetness, and the tea's tannin adds the structure milk chocolate lacks.
For example: Earl Grey ganache in a milk chocolate shell
A dark milk has enough cocoa presence to meet the tea and enough dairy sweetness to keep the bergamot from turning medicinal.
For example: Earl Grey infused into a 50% dark milk ganache
Commonly recommended, and frequently disappointing
Earl Grey with a very dark, tannic chocolate. Tea tannin plus cocoa polyphenols plus bergamot's own bitterness is three astringencies at once, and the result dries the mouth out.
Serving
Infuse the leaves in hot cream and strain before making the ganache. Over-infusion extracts more tannin and the result turns harsh rather than more flavoured.
Related
Chocolate types this pairs with
- Milk chocolateBergamot's sharp floral citrus cuts milk chocolate's sweetness, and the tea's tannin adds the structure milk chocolate lacks.
- Dark milk chocolateA dark milk has enough cocoa presence to meet the tea and enough dairy sweetness to keep the bergamot from turning medicinal.
Sources
- ChocolateHQ editorial synthesis — ChocolateHQ(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)