Earl Grey MarTEAni

Difford’s Guide
Discerning Drinkers (121 ratings)

Serve in a Martini glass

Ingredients:
2 oz Hayman's London Dry Gin tea infused
34 oz Lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
12 oz Monin Pure Cane Syrup (65.0°brix, equivalent to 2:1 rich syrup)
12 oz Egg white (pasteurised) or Aquafaba (chickpea water) or 3 dashes Fee Brothers Fee Foam cocktail foamer
× 1 1 serving
Read about cocktail measures and measuring

Garnish: Lemon zest twist

How to make:

1. Infuse gin with black tea (preferably Earl Grey). Rather than infuse a whole bottle, you can instead pour just 120ml (4oz) dry gin (enough for two cocktails) into a small glass with one Earl Grey tea bag for five minutes at room temperature to achieve the desired flavour extraction. (Any longer and tannins can be overly dominant.) 2. DRY SHAKE all ingredients (without ice) to emulsify. SHAKE again with ice and fine strain into chilled glass.

Allergens:

Recipe contains the following allergens:

  • Egg white (pasteurised) - Eggs

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol
Medium
Boozy
Strength 7/10
Sweet
Medium
Dry/sour
Sweet to sour 7/10
Cocktail of the day:

25th May 2025 is Towel Day

Review:

A fantastic and very English drink created by a New Yorker. The gin botanicals combine wonderfully with the flavours and tannins of the tea.

View readers' comments

History:

Adapted from a recipe created in 2000 by Audrey Saunders at Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle, New York City.

Nutrition:

One serving of Earl Grey MarTEAni contains 192 calories

Alcohol content:

  • 1.3 standard drinks
  • 16.16% alc./vol. (16.16° proof)
  • 18.2 grams of pure alcohol

Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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Rin Cheung’s Avatar Rin Cheung
9th May 2024 at 02:36
what should I do if I wana infuse a hole bottle of 700ml's'gin with the tea bags…is that means I should put 10 package in to the gin??
Russell Lee’s Avatar Russell Lee
9th May 2024 at 03:11
Different tea bags may vary, but I'd stick with using about 4 tea bags for a full bottle of gin, and letting it steep for about 2 hours before checking in on it to see how it tastes (I've seen elsewhere to not go further than 8 hours of steeping). Using 10 tea bags is quite a lot - you can always add more and adjust as you go, and not so much the other way around (unless you have more bottles of gin around to water it down! Alternatively, you can always cut open the tea bags if you really want to get exacting with it - even then, 4 tablespoons of tea to steep for 2 hours (and up to 8 hours) will do it!
Dávid Ugróczi’s Avatar Dávid Ugróczi
8th March 2024 at 23:24
As someone who loves tea, especially Earl Grey, this was a real treat for me. I used Dilmah loose leaf tea for infusion, it was amazingly delicate.
Ace Taylor’s Avatar Ace Taylor
31st December 2023 at 23:33
Wow. I've been looking for ways to incorporate my love of tea into cooking and drinks for a long time and this is incredible! The earl grey is fragrant and comes through whilst keeping the drink well balanced. Well done Mr Difford!
Russell Lee’s Avatar Russell Lee
30th December 2023 at 04:24
A minor thing for anyone infusing in smaller servings - some of that gin's measurments will end up staying absorbed inside the tea bag, so if you're infusing 2 or 4 oz, you're probably going to end up losing 0.2 or 0.4 oz of gin to the infusion. You could squeeze every last drop of gin from tea bag, but a warning that you'll over-extract tannins and bitterness doing this. Just make sure you add a tiny splash more gin for your infusion at the start to avoid this (or just do larger servings).
Seán Cassidy’s Avatar Seán Cassidy
14th December 2023 at 22:58
One of my favourite drinks ever. Like Peter below I've just tried this with Lady Grey and agree it's perhaps a little more understated than Earl (although I suspect there's probably not a great deal between any black tea used, anyone tried this with PG Tips yet?!)

And thanks for including the advice on infusing smaller quantities Simon, all the other recipes I've seen insist on using an entire bottle which isn't terribly practical for the home drink-mixer...!!
Simon Difford’s Avatar Simon Difford
15th December 2023 at 11:17
Thanks, Seán. I've updated the "How to make" above to make clearer.
Matt Excell’s Avatar Matt Excell
4th June 2023 at 07:40
Does the 5 minute infusion really work? Most recipes have a full bottle infusing for 2 hours, but is five minutes enough for a single serving? Also, how much tea to use for a single serving? As much as if I was making a regular cup of Earl Grey?
20th August 2024 at 23:15
I did 10 minutes - it absolutely works better than the crazy long steeping times you find online, that extract far too many tannins. 5 minutes should be perfectly fine.

I believe the 2-8 hours is taken from cold-brewing tea in water, but water and 80-proof gin have different qualities.

I used my go-to Brokers Gin.
Matt Tench’s Avatar Matt Tench
29th January 2024 at 14:22
You can always (and should) taste. In my case 5 minutes wasn't enough (Twining's Earl Grey) and it needed 6 to better profile the tea.

I tried it with Beefeater and Tanq 10 and also split base of the above (50/50 and 80/20) and in every blind test the Beefeater 100% was preferred (as it's quite taste neutral and the tea was better perceived).
25th May 2023 at 08:16
Hello everyone! I made a similar drink working in London - behind the bar of course. I personally infuse a whole bottle of London Dry Gin (3 bags per litre) then 50ml in, 25ml lemon juice, 15 of rich syrup and I go heavy with the eggwhite (50ml). I called it Earl Grey Flip (even it has no egg yolk in there but sounded great to me!). Still in my drinklists since 2016, it’s been bestseller in Bistrotheque, London.
23rd April 2023 at 20:19
I followed the advice of Dave Arnold and tried making it with honey syrup since tea+lemon just begs for honey. It tastes great. Still to try with simple syrup.
peter holmes’ Avatar peter holmes
18th November 2022 at 21:29
A certain shop actually sells a tea blend named Lady Grey which I have in the house. Having a play tonight but at first go it seems a little more refined than standard Earl Grey. May reduce the sugar and lemon slightly to stop the tea getting swamped. Will report back later.
Giulio Motta’s Avatar Giulio Motta
4th January 2022 at 12:26
Is there a reason to go with breakfast tea instead of Earl Grey even though it's called Earl Grey MarTEAni?
Simon Difford’s Avatar Simon Difford
4th January 2022 at 13:34
Works with any black tea but, as you say, given the name of the cocktail, Earl Grey would be preferable. I've amended the recipe accordingly.