Twinings Earl Grey is about a zillion times nicer than Sainos own brand.
I can't drink strong black tea anymore since I gave up milk, and found that with most 'black' EG I only needed to wave the tea bag over the top or it was too strong. Then our local hot beverage emporium told me that Teapigs do an Earl Grey Darjeeling (bsgs only) which is much more to my liking.
Our local hot beverage emporium was out of my usual Nepal Maloom tea so I ordered from The Kent Tea & Coffee co and spotted they have loose EG Darjeeling so I'll see how that compares to the Teapigs...
I find i can't drink tea from india/africa/Kenya as they seem to have more tannin. Sainsburys Earl Grey used to be based on China tea, but now is not so I had to find an alternative. Luckily we have a local tea merchant that supplies decent Earl Grey along with formosa oolong and a good Russian caravan
My technique is a 500ml mug with a pinch of loose leaves in the bottom, pou on the water, leave to settle, and keep topping up during the day
There's a fascinating inversion around the whole tea thing. Historically as we know, tea came from China, we brits think of ourselves as the champion tea drinkers in the world, after all we've got PG Tips. And Kenya, and Earl Grey, and Assam, and Ceylon, and Darjeeling, and of course ENGERLISH BREAKFASTY. We tend to think of china tea as a single blend, something you pick off a shelf that says "China tea".
Go to China, and you'll find an almost exact inversion. All of our tea they lump together as "Black tea", coarse and tannin strong. Our belief that
PROPER tea needs to be made with boiling water? forget it. Instead they have an eyewatering range of different teas and infusions, both on common sale and in specialist tea shops with (for China) high prices. This seems to be in line with your personal taste. Milk before or after tea is easy - it simply has no place.
Obviously the western tea habit is longstanding and widespread, so equally valid, but it is an interesting comparison all the same.
