Tealux

Another tea I’m first to review? These poor teas! Tealux sent this one along with my order! Not something I probably would have ordered, since I was afraid the cherry might be like cough drops. Opening the bag, it does smell a bit like cough drops, but there is supposed to be three different types of cherries here… and pineapple! With the lemongrass and green tea, it is a nice combination. All the flavors meld together. I think everything is equally represented here. It kind of reminds me of a fruitcake or something (especially if you add some rum to it.. which I did not do). I’ve only had one fruitcake in my life but I LIKED it. There was a HUGE chunk of pineapple that would not even fit in the infuser by itself, so that will have to wait until I get that brew basket. I steeped for a minute and ten seconds… not sure if I overdid it or underdid it… I will be brewing this many more times to find out! A nice surprise. OH… and there was no hibiscus, so that is nice!

This is an excellent morning mug tea now that I’ve figured it out! 4g leaves in my 16 oz mug, steeped for just about 3 min, with 1/2 tsp honey and a splash of ‘cream’. This still provides a strong cup of tea, but the short brew really allows the cream flavour to show through, and minimizes the tendency towards bitterness. Yum!

(I really need to a) bleach out my timolino because I was an idiot and now it smells like coffee, and b) get a glass or ceramic travel mug with a lid that seals pretty well (and isn’t too expensive). I dropped my fav. Sbux travel mug one too many times, and the lid keeps popping off!)

I tried to drink this tea this morning, but then I upset something on my desk and a bunch of non-edible stuff fell in my mug! I didn’t bother re-brewing, and moved on to, uhh, gin. I know, I know. But I was working on a calculus assignment (for 9 hours!) and gin was necessary.

From the bit I had, this tea is very very strong. I think that 3 minutes brew time is plenty, and I even added sugar and milk. The cream flavour isn’t terribly strong, but it does add something to the tea that I haven’t tasted before. I do like it, and am looking forward to a travel mug of it tomorrow! (Thankfully the travel mug has a lid, so even though they’re not kind to flavours, at least I won’t drop anything into it!)

I thought a dark oolong chai would be interesting. I don’t see those often! This one isn’t bad, but I think there should be more flavor. There was a big almond slice in my infuser (I didn’t know almonds got that big.) Well, there isn’t much of a nutty flavor. And it doesn’t taste much like chai either, but I’ve found that usually if a chai is mixed with a base rather than just a mix of spices, the spiciness isn’t very strong. (With one exception being zentealife.com’s Energizing Chai that is mixed with pu-erh and yerba mate.) Looking in the infuser, the oolong leaves are both green and brown, so its like they mixed two kinds of oolong. That may be why the flavor is a little odd to me. There is a tanginess to it that I don’t love…I kind of expected a roasty oolong with nice complex flavors.

So this time I tried it with 3g of tea per 250ml (8oz) of water. Honestly, the amount of leaves looks to be almost identical to what I had measured!

The water was a little hotter this time, but the tea is still so delicious. Delicate and sweet, but it definitely has a bit of a rich flavour to it. I should probably get more, as I can see running out and then craving a cup!

I don’t really know what to think of it. It’s my first white tea ever! Dry, the leaves are a little squishy, and are quite large. The package says 1-2 tsp, but I just estimated as the leaves are too big to measure that way.

It smells really sweet and a little grassy. The flavour is super delicate. I have a feeling I didn’t use enough leaves as I can’t really spoon it out, but then how many grams would I use for a cup?

I do like it as it’s another tea I will drink without any additives (perfect for work!), but would I buy more? I’m not sure. I’ll have to drink more of this (really huge) sample and make some more notes.

Well, I’m not sure why there aren’t any tasting notes on this yet. Does tealux have a person on here to updates photos and such? I did my best in creating an entry, but I couldn’t get that part up.

Now for the tea. Smelling the dry and steeped tea, it smells vaguely of cherry, sort of fermented cherry, a little bit like cough syrup. Drinking it tastes about like that too. I continue to try out cherry black teas in hopes that one will rise above the rest and make me love it forever…but this isn’t the one yet.

Edited to add: took the second cup of this (not a resteep, just made 2 cups on the first batch) and it’s much less cough-syrupy without sugar. The addition of sugar really adds that. Upping the rating.

Gah! Problems clearing packages through customs, problems getting hold of friends, problems finding enough money for the bus to campus…

Yep, that means another matcha frappa-whatsit. I think I’ll make a nice travel mug (or three) to bring to work with me. I have no idea how long I’ll be there for, and honestly I just want to work from home. Wednesday, right? Wednesday I can stay home? And Thursday? Maybe Friday too? (Unless I get temp work. Then all bets are off.)

I’ve been so busy looking for work, and working, I haven’t managed to get on here! I’m also trying to resist the temptation to buy more tea, so there’s no reading about what others are drinking…

My morning “tea” has been matcha in a smoothie every day. Milky substance, 1/2 frozen banana, ice, protein powder, matcha, honey. Not the best combo maybe, but I don’t do early mornings well and at least this is getting some nutrition into me. If I remember, I also throw in a handful of spinach for a truly GREEN smoothie!

Having this as an iced latte. 1 tsp, seived, hot water, frothed, ice and soy milk and sugar, shaken (not stirred!).

This matcha is a bit better than the Unknown Matcha I got at H-Mart. There’s less bitterness, but not much. They both smell really similar to me. Of course, I’ve had this one open since January, and I just bought the other, so there could be some impact on quality there.

For lattes, considering price and shipping, I’d have to go with the locally available Unknown. Well, unless there’s a group order. :)

Matcha whipped cream with hot almond milk. There isn’t really much to say about that.

Umm, another latte and more matcha whipped cream. On an empty stomach. Possibly not the wisest decision, but oh so tasty.

Yum! I made matcha whipped cream (I knew I should have bought soy creamer for my tea!), and used it to top a matcha latte. So good.

1/2 tbsp matcha (a lot, I know) in 8oz almond milk. Sugar to taste. I used so much matcha powder it’s getting a little bitter, but honestly? I don’t care. There’s whipping cream.

Since I ended up at the hospital today, I needed some comfort. Tea latte to the rescue! (I mucked up my shoulder somehow a couple weeks ago, and even with massage/chiro, it’s not getting better. In fact, it’s more painful than my last bad cycling crash. So I went for x-rays, and have a CT scan later this week.)

8 oz almond milk, 1/2 tsp matcha powder, and 2 pumps Starbucks Vanilla Spice syrup. It was so good! I ended up falling asleep before finishing the cup, but once I woke up I just stirred it up and finished it. The grassy green flavour of the matcha was just perfect with the vanilla spice. Good thing I have a whole bag of tea, and a whole bottle of syrup!

I had this today as a tea latte! 1 tsp matcha powder whisked into 1/4 cup of hot water (or so). I got a TONNE of wee bubbles on this, even though I have a weird ball-shaped whisk instead of a bamboo whisk. I then added 12 oz of hot almond milk, sipped, and made a HORRIBLE face!

I definitely prefer my matcha sweetened. It took 2 tsp of sugar to sweeten this to my liking. Wow.

I do like the flavour of this matcha, though. The quality is good, it’s super green in colour, and it’s not one of those anonymous (well, to me) packages of matcha I can get at the local Asian markets that might have been sitting on the shelf for ages. (No really. Some of the matcha I have is almost brown in comparison to how green this stuff is!)

The only thing I’m lacking to make it the perfect latte texture is pectin.

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge – December Tea #4 – An old tea

additional notes: I will miss this old unique blend. I’d buy it again! It looks like it is this one here, but it’s pricey: https://in-tea.net/collections/puerh-teas/products/mayan-spice-puerh
It was like a Mexican hot chocolate in tea form. I liked trying so many teas from Tealux/Tealyra but then it seemed like they would stop carrying blends quickly (and I would only buy samples most of the time). This pouch is TEN years old, so I suppose it fits the prompt for OLD TEA.
2022 sipdowns: 124

March Mad(Hatter) Tea Tournament!
Round #1 – Match #6    PudTea – Caramel Brownie  VS.  Tealux – Puerh Cocoa Spice

I thought it was fitting these two chocolate teas fell into the matchups together – and again one old, one new.  Maybe I should have at least stayed on the same page of the steepster cupboard and picked a second random number within that same page to create more matchups that were similar in age, so both teas would be from the same page when shuffled by ‘recent’ but that would most likely result in teas from the same shops in matchups.  Not sure if that is good or bad.  Anyway, I really like both of these!  At least the puerh is supposed to age.  The puerh blend has such a lovely balance of the flavors – cinnamon & chocolate on the deep puerh base.  But the Pudtea utilizes cocoa shells, which are a chocolate tea MUST for me.  I can only imagine how great the Tealux blend would be if it used cocoa shells rather than cocoa nibs.  Both blends are cozy cocoa blends!  Hard choice.  I do appreciate that the Tealux has cinnamon – it adds another layer.  But then the level of depth is ridiculous in the Pudtea.  The cocoa shells make it so rich, then it’s a shock looking in the mug and the brew is a pale brown.  So the cocoa shells take it:  winner Pudtea – Caramel Brownie — though the ratings for them says different!
2021 sipdowns: 31

Another from Tealux! The ingredients sounded like such a great combination: pu-erh, chili, chocolate, cinnamon (and orange flowers which make the blend look great)! Tasting it, none of the flavors are very strong or noticeable (which might be a bit disappointing) but the flavors DO blend really well together to make a new interesting flavor, if that makes any sense (but don’t all teas do that?) It’s earthy, and there is a bit of a kick with the chili, and there is a flavor like those cinnamon candy hearts or Hot Tamales candies! Not much of a chocolate flavor, but like I said, the flavors combined make for something interesting. I really like it! I wonder if there is something chocolatey I can add… This sounds like it would be a nice Valentine’s Day tea!

I also want to say… I’m not sure why there aren’t many reviews for Tealux teas. It’s kind of the reason I ordered so many samples from them. They seem to be a decent tea company with very unique blends. They are in Canada but I think the shipping to the US was the same as most other US companies would charge. I wish more Steepsters would give Tealux a chance!

Another sample from Tealux. This seems like it would be a good one: lime, coconut, apple.. but I didn’t find much flavor after steeping for four minutes so I went for six minutes. Maybe I should have had more than a teaspoon of tea? This will probably only be steeped once, and I almost always go for multiple steeps. I don’t think I like green rooibos as much as red rooibos. It seems more sour somehow… and the red rooibos seems more woodsier. The coconut here seems to be the kind I don’t like. Not my favorite from Tealux. It reminds me of one of my favorites — Mojito from Element Tea (sadly out of business… if I knew how great that blend was, I would have bought more!) but the Tealux blend doesn’t even compare to the delicious Element blend.

This came as a surprise for me. You’d expect the multiple varieties of tea being chaotic but it all fits in quite well, with the pu’ehr slightly dominating with its typical earthy notes followed by the spices giving it a bit of a chai feeling, which I really like. Very nice on cold winter days.

Not bad. But I rarely (practically never) drink it, so it might be finding a new home in the compost.

I’d just rather drink something else, is how it’s gone. If I were drinking this regularly for health benefits, it’s actually pretty tasty. But for drinking because I like to drink tea… it’s not something I reach for.

I had another cup of this one last night. I do have to be careful, since I already burn easily and St. John’s Wort is known for making the skin more sensitive to the sun. I really enjoy sipping on this herbal medicine-y goodness.

This tea is a little fruity, a little spicy, and a little something else. That something else might be the juniper, or lady’s mantel, or silver weed, or st. john’s wort.

Even though the first ingredient is cinnamon, the flavour is not overwhelming. There’s a little warmth from the ginger, but mostly I taste “spice” and raspberry leaves with a background of apple.

I do like this as a nice alternative to the desserty teas I’ve been drinking in the evenings, but it is rather herbal medicine tasting. I used to drink a lot of tisanes for their health benefits, and I don’t want to diss this one, but I think that sort of flavour takes a bit of getting used to.

I added about 1/4 tsp honey to a 1 cup mug, but I don’t think it needed it.

Oh, and the ingredients etc are exactly the same as http://steepster.com/teas/banff-tea-co-dot-the/31192-ayurvedic-keep-well-women-uma

Yep, I like this one. Again, it’s amazingly milky with just a bit of that green grassy seaweedy flavour that I’m coming to associate with oolongs. Since I had a disaster with my Cuppow lid this morning, and had to dump my tea out before I wore it all, and I’m studying at home today, I’ve decided to work on steeping one tea as many times as possible.

Steep 1: I’d still prefer to steep less than 1 minute, but I don’t have a timer that does seconds. I bet there’s an app for that. :)

Steep 2: 45 seconds. Better than the first steep, because I found a timer app. Yay! It’s kinda caramelly, kinda milky, sweet, and has a little grassiness.