Velvety polished and crisp on the inside, the London Fog has been a soporific café treat since the delayed ’90s. The drink is essentially a black tea latte: an infusion of Earl Gray tea with steamed milk and a hint of sweetness. You could say it’s somewhere between a chai latte and a established cup of tea.
Who invented the London fog?
We’re content to say that in this day and age of Internet theft, ChatGPT, and no one’s acknowledgment, the London Fog can actually be linked to a specific person: Mary Loria, a ceramicist from Victoria, British ColumbiaMary lived in Vancouver in the 90s, and although she was (and still is) an avid coffee drinker, pregnancy forced her to seek out alternatives to her favorite beverages, which gave her severe stomach queasiness.
“I couldn’t drink coffee at all,” Loria tells Sprudge about that time. “I wanted something creamier, creamier, like a latte, but I needed it to not be coffee.”
Loria tolerated tea, so she started asking the baristas at her local Buckwheat Cafe to make her a steamed milk latte with a bag of Earl Gray. Then she sweetened the latte with vanilla sugar. She also started ordering the drink at other stores – “I remember trying to explain it to the Starbucks barista and he asked, ‘What do I do!?'” she says. The drink soon began appearing on menus and spread to other cafes – especially in the Pacific Northwest – and remains a popular menu item in North America today. (Starbucks introduced its own Teavana® London Fog Latte in 2009, which is made from tea, 2% milk and vanilla syrup.)
While it’s true that Loria was the first person anyone knows of to order the drink, the story is a bit of a mystery: She doesn’t know what the drink was named after, or how anyone connected the story to her. At some point, she learned of a Wikipedia quote that listed her as the creator of the drink — and the details sounded correct — but she still doesn’t know exactly who gave her the credit.
“I didn’t set out to invent a drink,” says Loria, whose first child — the one that inspired the drink — turns 25 this year. “I literally thought, ‘You know what would be good?’”
Do they serve London Fog in London?
Although London fog is most ubiquitous in the Pacific Northwest, it can be seen everywhere, on café menus from Calgary to Recent York to Kansas City. Some online sources claim that this drink is available in various parts of the UK under the name “Vancouver Fog”. this claim is unconfirmed.
As for London, Sprudge was unable to identify any cafes serving London Fog London. One local source we consulted told Sprudge that he had “no idea what it was” and was “terrified by the thought of a lot of milk with Earl Gray,” adding that they had “never seen it on a menu… they have never seen.” whoever was drinking it” and “I had no idea it existed.”
Can I make London Fog at home?
Why, certainly. Depending on the milk frothing technology, the results may differ from the drink’s original intent, but you can try with the basic elements of Earl Gray, milk or milk substitute, vanilla and sweetener. (Some people like to add lavender – we won’t stop them!) While some recipes call for steeping the Earl Gray first (preparing it as a proper tea) before adding steamed milk, others – like Loria’s original – simply add a tea bag to a glass of steamed milk. Sweeten to taste to finish, and imagine yourself on the misty shores of London. Or Vancouver. Or at Starbucks. Whatever works!
