Two white porcelain cups of amber black tea side by side on a pale marble table, one beside a few dried red rose petals and the other beside a halved bergamot orange and blue cornflower petals

Marco Polo vs Earl Grey French Blue: Which Tea to Buy

Published 15 Oct 20265 min read

Marco Polo and Earl Grey French Blue sit side by side in the Mariage Frères range. Both are scented black teas from the Paris house founded in 1854, and both come as loose leaf in a 100-gram canister. They even brew at exactly the same numbers. Then the lids come off, and they could hardly smell more different. One is a mystery blend of fruit and flowers; the other is the citrus snap of bergamot.

This comparison applies to Mariage Frères Marco Polo and Earl Grey French Blue in their 100-gram loose-leaf canisters, with brewing numbers as Mariage Frères published them as of October 2026.

Marco Polo or Earl Grey French Blue: the short answer

Choose Marco Polo for a soft, fruity, flowery cup that Mariage Frères describes as velvety. Choose Earl Grey French Blue for zesty, lightly peppery bergamot with a hint of cornflower, in a cup the house describes as full of body. If the person drinking it already loves Earl Grey, French Blue is the natural gift; if they like their tea fragrant but have never settled on a favorite, Marco Polo is a gentle introduction.

What Marco Polo tastes like

Mariage Frères calls Marco Polo a wonderfully fruity and flowery fragrant black tea, and says its fragrances evoke Chinese and Tibetan flowers and lend it a velvety taste. The ingredients line reads tea and aroma, and the company describes the blend as mysterious.

In the cup, the scent does most of the talking. It suits the afternoon or a slice of cake (shop Marco Polo). The Marco Polo tea guide covers the blend's history and the family of teas that share its name.

What Earl Grey French Blue tastes like

Earl Grey is black tea scented with bergamot, a citrus grown mainly for the essential oil in its peel. A 2015 review in Frontiers in Pharmacology notes that bergamot trees are cultivated almost exclusively along the southern coast of Calabria, and that more than 90% of world production comes from that region.

Mariage Frères builds French Blue on that note. Its producer description pairs the fruity, zesty and lightly peppery notes of refined bergamot with the sweet scent of cornflower, and the ingredients list black tea, cornflower and aroma. The house describes the cup as balanced and full of body with ample, lasting flavor (shop Earl Grey French Blue).

Marco Polo vs Earl Grey French Blue, side by side

Detail	Marco Polo	Earl Grey French Blue
Tea type	Scented black tea	Earl Grey black tea
Scent, in the producer's words	Fruity and flowery; Chinese and Tibetan flowers; velvety	Refined bergamot, fruity, zesty, lightly peppery; cornflower
Ingredients listed	Tea, aroma	Black tea, cornflower, aroma
Leaf per cup	2.5 g per 200 ml	2.5 g per 200 ml
Water temperature	95°C (203°F)	95°C (203°F)
Steep time	5 minutes	5 minutes
Character in the cup	Velvety, fruity and flowery	Zesty bergamot, full of body
Our suggestion	Afternoon tea, cake, a first scented tea	Breakfast, a squeeze of lemon, the committed Earl Grey drinker

Read down the brewing rows and the two teas are identical. That is useful: whichever canister is open, the kettle, the scoop and the timer stay the same. The whole decision comes down to the scent row.

Paris Earl Grey: a third choice for bergamot purists

Earl Grey drinkers who want bergamot on its own have another option from the same house. Paris Earl Grey is a shimmering black tea with zesty notes of royal bergamot, and its ingredients list carries no flowers, just tea and aroma (shop Paris Earl Grey). Mariage Frères gives it the same 2.5 grams and 95°C but a shorter steep, four minutes. Between the two Earl Greys, French Blue adds cornflower to the bergamot, and Paris Earl Grey keeps to bergamot alone.

Mariage Frères makes more Earl Greys than these. Its Earl Grey Impérial, for example, scents a Darjeeling base with bergamot. For choosing between Marco Polo and an Earl Grey, though, French Blue is the useful benchmark.

Brewing Marco Polo and Earl Grey French Blue in Denver

Both teas ask for water at 95°C, which is 203°F. Colorado State University Extension notes that water boils at 212°F at sea level but at about 203°F at 5,000 feet. In Denver, then, a kettle at a full boil is already at or very close to the temperature Mariage Frères specifies, so there is no need to let it cool. At sea level, a full boil is about 9°F hotter than the producer's number.

Loose leaf needs somewhere to steep. A steeper holds the leaves in the cup or pot and comes out when the five minutes are up (shop the loose leaf tea steeper). For anyone still deciding whether loose leaf is worth it, the loose-leaf vs tea bags guide explains what changes in the cup.

Fruit and flowers without the black tea

Mariage Frères takes the Marco Polo scent beyond black tea. Marco Polo Rouge puts the same fruit-and-flower profile on rooibos, which is naturally caffeine-free, at the same 2.5 grams, 95°C and five minutes (shop Marco Polo Rouge). For an evening cup, that is the caffeine-free member of the family. Polo Club is a scented green maté, with notes of fruit, flowers, honey and vanilla, brewed cooler at 80°C (shop Polo Club maté).

Marco Polo and Earl Grey French Blue: short answers

How many cups are in a 100-gram canister? At the producer's 2.5 grams a cup, forty.

Milk or no milk? Taste each one plain first, then add milk or lemon to taste.

How long will an open canister keep its scent? The guide to whether loose-leaf tea goes bad covers storage.

The how to taste tea guide is a good companion to a two-cup comparison at home. For more from the house, see the Mariage Frères collection.

The two teas share a kettle, a scoop and a timer, so the simplest way to choose is to brew both side by side, five minutes each, and smell the cups before drinking. One will read as a bouquet and the other as a citrus grove. Whichever cup is empty first on an ordinary Tuesday is the one to buy.