A London fog is a hot tea-based drink that consists of Earl Grey tea, steamed milk, and a sweetener, often vanilla syrup. Earl Grey tea imparts its flavors of black tea and bergamot, a citrus… The basic ingredients of a London fog are boiling black tea, preferably Earl Grey tea, vanilla extract, and steamed milk of choice. A teaspoon of raw honey or maple syrup is used to sweeten it. Sometimes, a small amount of cream is poured on top of the drink, topped with sprinkles of cinnamon, nutmeg, or lavender.
and claims that it was invented in Vancouver in the 1997 by Mary Loria, who never named it “London Fog”!?
So, something about this history struck me as suspect, and I was wondering whether you might clear it up. For one thing, I have had the incrediblyoriginal idea of adding milk (steamed or pre-mixed) to tea myself, and also, experimentally, to add exotic spices like sugar or honey or possibly cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, citrus, etc. (or simply to use those Earl Grey teabags because that is what is in the cupboard). But now it was invented in 1997 by a specific person? And it has a marketing-type name that is not simply “masala chai latte”, except the supposed inventor never actually named it?
I think it’s the vanilla that’s distinctive. My wife once ordered some flavoured teas from a website and one of them was called London Fog; I found the vanilla flavour kind of overpowering.
Looking at Google, it looks like the idea may have morphed to the more generic idea of any tea latte made with Earl Grey tea. I agree there’s nothing particularly special about that, but there’s nothing particularly special about vodka and orange juice either (IMO) and it has a distinctive name.
This belongs in the category of “invention” that includes lots of food concoctions- at best the “inventor” is the person who most successfully came up with a name and marketing for an existing food preparation that either catches the zeitgeist or turns into the foundation of a lucrative business.
Or, folks retroactively look for an “origin” to give a marketable and unique story to something that is commonplace.
The only cite about the origin in that wikipedia article, which is a piece of local lifestyle journalism, can be summed up as:
There’s a woman in Vancouver who used to order this whacky combination of milk and Earl Grey tea. No one believed it would be good, but gol darn it, she told all her friends about this totally original combination. Some years later, she saw that combination on cafe menus under the name ‘London Fog’, which clearly means that her single-handedly “inventing” (no cite necessary) this odd combination lead to it spreading across the nation. But no one knows how, or why, or where the name comes from. But she totally invented it.
Sorry if my summary is a little harsh, but I am a bit surprised that wikipedia states its origins as factual, when they are nothing of the sort.
My guess on the origins are more like:
With the development of coffee and cafe culture in the Pacific Northwest, coffee shops would maintain a small selection of teas as alternatives for customers who didn’t want coffee. Earl Grey was a common and easily accessible blend for tea non-sophisticates, with a name that doesn’t involve having to pronounce or be intimidated by ‘exotic’ SE Asian names. And, bergamot is tasty, and holds up to milk and milk alternatives. Any cafe serving milky coffee drinks would also be serving tea lattes as well, and Earl Grey is a likely option. Someone somewhere came up with the name “London Fog” for the Earl Grey latte, but they were not the first person to make an Earl Grey latte.
As noted, the original has vanilla in it (which is slightly less obvious than just adding milk).
Likewise, serving booze + mixer in a martini glass and calling it a “martini” is not exactly original, but you can’t pin the blame on the inventor of the martini.
