Tealyra (formerly Tealux)

I’ve had this bag of shôu carefully stored in its sealed mylar bag for 8 years and it has not appreciably changed in that time, now being 28 yr old. This is a loose-leaf tea that was never compressed and consists of clean chopped leaf dried into short brown threads (<1cm). I brewed as directed by the label: western style with 2g leaf in 8oz 205°C spring water for 1 min, using a stainless micropore infusion basket, after a 10s wash in the same water.

The resulting liquor was deep red-brown in color, and both flavor and aroma were fairly one-dimensional. Petrichor earthiness, autumn forest leaves, slight sweetness, a touch of bitter, and a caffeine kick. Just as Tealyra promised: “drinkable”. No fishiness or astringency, and I couldn’t quite get the mineral notes mentioned by Tealyra. Once I added sweetener and milk. the flavor came alive to present a creamy vanilla taste and fragrance that was quite nice and coated the mouth. That is how I’ll drink this in the future. Offered multiple steeps (more than I cared to drink). I’ll rate this as 50 and recommend it as a value introduction to ripe pu’erh, good for blending and free of major defects.

Followup Edit: I’m obliged to report some sad news— I poured a cup of hot water and added milk and sweetener, only to discover the same notes of creamy vanilla and nuttiness. So I cannot credit the tea for the flavors at all. Generic yellow packet of sucralose and generic lactose-free ultrafiltered dairy milk. :-(

It’s a shame Tealyra no longer carries this (I had to do some archive.org magic to get the info from the old sales page to add to Steepster), because this is quite lovely. The name is a bit confusing since “White” makes me think of “white tea” but this is actually a green rooibos herbal blend. It is described as a lemon/vanilla blend, but with the pithy orange in the ingredients, the flavor tastes a bit more like a cross between a lemon cream and an orange creamsicle. It is sweet and definitely has a vanilla cream flavor, but there is just enough citrus zing to keep it from being cloying. I’ve only tried it brewed warm, but I imagine it would be a lovely cold steep, as well. I’ll miss this one once it’s gone!

2025 TTB #21

I don’t recall having tried a fruity chai before. In theory, I could see it working…something like a cinnamon-spiced berry crumble? But this one didn’t do it for me, sadly. Both beetroot and hibiscus are bringing a lot of berry-red color but an unfortunate tartness and earthiness that is overwhelming whatever berry flavor might be here. And the spices are very light for a chai…just a whisper of cinnamon and ginger, mostly in the aftertaste.

I personally love Japanese black teas, but they are hard to find (and often quite expensive) especially when trying to avoid foreign shipping. But I had this one from a (now dated) Tealyra order and it is lovely! Of the Japanese blacks I’ve had in the past, there is always this really fruity quality to them that I personally love, and this one is no exception. It leads with strong, malty Assam qualities like baked cinnamon raisin bread and autumn leaves, with a fruity end of the sip that lingers on the tongue that is a little like muscat and cherry. Sometimes the fruitiness presents with a sort of effervescent feeling that reminds me of wine, particularly in the aftertaste.

So far I’ve only been steeping this hot, and since the leaves are hard to come by and a little pricey, I’ve been getting a resteep out of them, as well (which I typically don’t do). The resteep doesn’t have the strong flavor notes and tastes more like a general black breakfast tea, so sometimes I’ll add a little lemon or honey to it. But that first steep is perfect just as it is.

Wow this is nice! I had been trying a handful of fruity teas and tisanes from Tealyra, with mixed results. This Ginger Ginseng Chamomile tisane blend made the best fruity infusion I’ve found. Anywhere. I followed the label directions for a western-style infusion of 1-1/2 tsp dry tisane (wonderful dry aroma of chamomile, orange and ginger) in 8oz boiling alpine spring water in a micropore stainless infusion basket for 5 min. Single steeping.

The resulting liquor had a strong golden-orange hue, was crystal clear, and delivered a mostly chamomile and orange aroma. The first sip gave a chamomile overture, with backup melodies of mixed spice. The melodies resolved as a softer chamomile drone with a fugue, starting with a prickly tingle of ginger on the top and sides of my tongue, followed by mint in the nose, sweet orange across the mouth, a gentle zing of slightly sour rosehips, and a whiff of mint. This was then followed by a returning ginger heat on the tongue as the other notes rose into the sinuses. Really, all the flavors and aromas were so well balanced that I’m sure the ginseng flavors were in there, but I wasn’t aware of it taking the lead. Even ten min after my last sip, there was a sweet and warming tail of flavor lingering to be enjoyed. Once reaching room temp, the flavors had flattened out and was mostly ginger and chamomile.

I recommend enjoying this tisane hot and/or warm. I’ll rate it as 95, it was soooo good! I’ll enjoy this on spring and summer evenings, when I need to avoid caffeine. Hope you get to enjoy it!

ICED. Brewed as directed, at double strength, then added an a tablespoon of white sugar, an equal volume of cold spring water, and chilled in a sealed jar 24hr. Result: Cloudy pale yellow liquor with very floral fragrance, but tastes like apple juice with a hint of berry. Flat apple juice, without any bite or zing. Really boring and not recommended—just drink real apple juice! Rating this style a 20, as it may have utility as an alcohol mixer, but choose something high-proof!

COLD BREW. Put 3 tsp dry tisane in a pint jar and added a cup of water. Sealed and let sit on counter overnight, then 12 hr in refrig. Added a cup of cold spring water (no sweetener) and tasted. Result: Cloudy golden liquor. Cidery aroma and the most foul tasting somewhat sour and slightly bitter infusion I’ve ever had. Yuck! Don’t do this! Had an appley aftertaste, but not worth the trouble or nastyness to get there. Rating this style a 5, for a average rating of 31 for the hot, iced and cold brew concoctions together.

Upon opening the pouch of “Organic Pomegranate Raspberry” tea, I immediately noticed two things: an incredibly pungent aroma and major stratification of the ingredients. So I tumbled the pouch around a bit to re-blend the contents to uniformity. The dry aroma was so very artificial, and it took me a while to identify it as the exact smell of Wrigley’s Juicyfruit Chewing Gum! Now I happen to like the smell & taste of Juicyfruit Gum, regardless of the artificiality of it, so I was optimistic. Note this contains no Camellia sinensis, so it is not actually tea, but rather is a tisane. Also, it contains papaya with added sugar.

I brewed it up as directed, western style: 1-2 tsp tisane with 8 oz boiled spring water, in a stainless micropore infusion basket for 5 min. The resulting liquor was golden colored and the juicyfruit fragrance had been driven off and replaced by a rather offputting vegetal scent, likely due to the papaya and drumstick tree leaves (Moringa oleifera). As it cooled, the fragrance shifted toward pleasant raspberries and apple, which remained through the rest of my sipping and lingered in the empty cup. While hot, the taste was reminiscent of apple dumpling (without cinnamon), and though inoffensive was not my favorite. As it cooled, the berry flavors reasserted themselves and I enjoyed the improvement! I never really noticed anything like pomegranate flavor, nor pomegranate flowers. I will prepare iced tea with my next infusion and report back on it. Overall, I would give this a Rating of 68, and recommend it to those who like strong fruity flavors. I’m not sure why the ingredient lists both raspberries and raspberry! Maybe for the same reason the description uses the word “perfect” twice in the same sentence?!

One other issue I note: The tea is labeled (but not on the website) as “organic”. I do not believe it, because of the papaya content. Virtually no papaya in commercial global production can be correctly labeled as USDA Organic. Same under EU regulations. (Though the package omits the term “USDA”.) Personally I don’t give a rats tail about organic foods, but I do care about misleading labeling. So take that label cum grano salis.

I will admit to having been swayed by the Tealyra description and reviews posted on their site. And I had not seen eelong’s tea note here on Steepster — a note that might have dissuaded me from purchasing Rosy Earl Grey. However, I have been captivated by roses and rose scents since childhood, and was eager to try this blend. And I liked it! Mostly. I do also enjoy jasmine scents (and have before remarked on my memories of summertime play amongst the Star Jasmine bushes as a kid in California).

I do wish tea purveyors would be more strictly precise in their claims and ingredients. When a claim of “bergamot essential oil, jasmine, lavender” is made, I expect to find those precise ingredients listed, and not obscured behind the anonymity of “natural flavors” or a vague compound ingredient like “jasmine green tea”. The dry leaf was nicely fragrant of rose petals (not rosehips), and I was optimistic.

I steeped (a single cup) western style, according to direction: 1 tsp leaf in 8 oz (boiling alpine spring) water, for 3-1/2 min, in a stainless microscreen infusion basket. The jasmine aroma was more pronounced in the tea vapors, though I also detected scents of rose and bergamot. While sipping, I found it easy to identify each of the named ingredient flavors, largely in my sinuses, but with bergamot on the sides of my tongue, and with the lavender arriving late to the center back of my tongue in the finish of each sip. I only saw the green tea leaves and smelled their jasmine, but couldn’t really parse out a distinct taste of green tea. Perhaps the green tea accounted for the slight bitterness and bite with a little astringency that I noted (and which Tealyra described, too). The clear amber color undoubtedly came from the black tea content, though it was only barely detected as a flavor. Finally, in the last few sips of the cooler tea, I got a powdery floral hit on the roof of my mouth. Overall, this was a satisfying springtime bouquet that I would recommend and continue to enjoy from time to time, giving it a rating of 75 today, mostly docking points for the use of generic flavorings rather than actual biological components. I prefer a cup of plant origin, rather than the cheating of chemistry, which steals the magic.

I did not detect any notes of bubblegum, as reported by eelong. Thankfully.

My recent acquisitions from Tealyra included Surajamukhi Assam Orange Pekoe. I find it rather pleasant to sip, even if it doesn’t knock my hat off. 1.5g in 8 oz boiling spring water for 2 min produced a deep amber infusion with the expected Assam flavor profile. Notes of malt and raisin, with a caramel nose, enough astringency to tickle the tongue, decent aroma, pleasing aftertaste and a little stewiness as the cuppa cooled. Reasonably priced and better than grocery store CTC Assams. I’ll rate it as 75 and recommend it, with the caveat that there are richer and smoother Assamic options out there.

Okay, it’s been a long time coming, since I bought this sheng in the summer of 2017, and kept it in a dark, vented jelly jar for the past 7+ years, sipping along now and then, waiting for it to improve before putting words on paper. Alas, it has not gotten much better than the bitter, woody, leaf-litter flavor it has had all along. I’ve tried gong-fu as well as western style as directed by the label, all to no avail. It’s pretty dang WEAK, too. No idea when this tea was produced, other than before 2017. It was never pressed into a cake, and I know of no special treatment or storage. Just that it is from China. I get nothing but disappointment from it, and now it’s headed to my garden compost heap since it’s not worth the cost of the spring water I steep with. I rate it a 40, and wouldn’t recommend it — it’s no longer listed for sale by Tealyra, either, though “topproteastore” out of Miami still lists it (along with a bunch of other stuff identical to Tealyra’s offerings, right down to the photos and verbatim descriptions.)

A lovely tisane from Tealyra. I sipped the brew straight and hot and unsweetened, and got no hint of the titular cream. Chamomile was also absent in aroma, flavor, and appearance. Zooming-in on the scoop-ful in the saucer photo I’ve uploaded, I see no evidence of the reputed chamomile. I don’t know the flavor of nettle, “blue mellow flowers” or corn flowers, so I can’t say that I noticed them, either. I do think I got a good hit of rose hip, along with hibiscus, as their bitterness was present & pleasant, contrasting with the sweetness of peach, apple, and orange peel. I suppose if one really wanted a creaminess, one could always add milk or cream. The peach appears mainly as an aroma, but I liked the way the other flavors enveloped my entire mouth, stimulating much salivation! In the last 1/3 cup, I dumped in a yellow packet of sweetener, and the brew opened up wonderfully into a thick, syrupy swill that I could drink all evening! It felt like I was drinking the heavy syrup from tinned fruit salad. Very nicely balanced to my senses, so I’ll rate it strongly at 88. With the rose hip, this is bound to have a good dose of vitamin C.

This night has been a dark, cold, damp one and I find myself unable to slumber here in the wee hours, so I looked for a soothing tisane. I’ve had this one sealed up in my tea cabinet for a few years (time flies!) so I pulled it out and got to brewing. And I find that mastressalita added a note on it much more recently. Well, she did a fabulous job of reporting, so there is little more for me to add. I used 1-1/2 heaping tsp of material in a steel infusion basket with 8 oz boiling spring water, and let it steep for 5 min, as recommended by Tealyra. I also found the hibiscus very subtle, and to give a nice gentle tartness to an otherwise sweet-tasting cuppa. Though it really wasn’t very sweet, only giving the impression of sweetness! I did not discern any piney aroma or flavor, mainly just berries – berries – berries! Yes, there were notes of blackcurrents, but there was no such ingredient: it must be the reputed flavor of the buchu leaf. I really did enjoy the tea while hot, and I found as it cooled that the berry notes in aroma and flavor intensified, as did the sensation of sweetness. I loved how the sweet aftertaste wrapped itself around my tongue for many lingering minutes. I am resisting the urge to spike some sugar into the brew, because it seems like cheating — and unnecessary! I’ll rate this as an 85 for the pleasure I got out of the cup. Gonna brew a second cup right now…….
EDIT: Second cup was also good, but I wonder if the ingredients were truly caffeine/stimulent-free, because sleep did not finally arrive ’til 5 AM.

This tea is lovely! I’ve always really liked the flavor combination of peach/apricot with lavender but rarely find teas with this profile (the only one that comes to mind is a now discontinued Plum Deluxe blend). I’ve been preparing this as a cold brew, and it is very sweet, with a really soft peach flavor which leans a little toward candy due to the sweetness. The lavender is prominent in the flavor and blends beautifully with the peach, but doesn’t taste overly floral or perfumy. There is no tartness/tanginess in this tea, which would make this more approachable to the hibi-hating crowd. I personally wouldn’t have minded a little tartness to the peach, but the soft candied sweetness can be nice too, and works especially nice as a cold brew (no extra sweetener necessary!) This is a flavor combo that is simply a keeper for me, and I will have to get more of this sometime! (Though I would say this is more of a spring/summer sort of tea, so it may not be the most seasonally appropriate at the moment… I guess I’m just ready for the winter to be over already!)

Though this is marketed as an immunity blend, I’ve actually been holding up well this winter and managed to dodge the sick bullet that went through another department here at the library. But I am in pretty bad pain today (the menstrual double-whammy of migraine + cramps… my fellow migraineurs out there know exactly what I’m talking about!) so I made a big thermos of this at lunch to hopefully help boost the anti-inflammatory drugs. While I’m pretty skeptical about purported herbal health benefits, it at least can’t hurt anything…

Honestly, this tastes very on par with one of my earliest teas, Celestial Seasoning’s “Tension Tamer.” Which makes sense, both being very echinacea/mint heavy. The flavor is a sort of grainy dry hay mixed with mint, with a touch of herbaceous citrus from the lemongrass. Most cups of this I’ve made had a slightly weird tangy note at the end of the sip which I assume is the elderberries and rose hips, but I’m not getting that with this cup, so maybe it’s a “luck of the scoop” issue or something that only comes out with a really long steep (I’m known to just “leave the bag in” on herbals when I’m sipping at home in the evening, but today I did a 10 minute steep and then removed the leaves).

It’s not particularly exciting, but are sick teas ever, really? It’s a bit herbaceous in the taste which isn’t my favorite, but I’ve definitely tasted healthy herbal blends that were way worse. The mint does a good job of hiding a lot of the weirder notes.

Opening the bag, this tea has such a strong and pleasant nutty aroma, which thankfully carries out into teh brewed aroma and flavor. I get a strong sweet nutty flavor which stands up well to the earthy pu’erh and really drowns out a lot of the dirty notes in shou that I don’t care for. The earthy tones of the pu’erh do come out a bit more as the tea cools and is very present if the cup goes cold… for me at least, this is a “drink it while it’s hot!” tea. I decided to experiment with a latte, using 400ml of brewed tea and 100ml warm frothed sweet vanilla almond milk with a teaspoon of maple syrup, and it is outright decadent. More work for the preparation but it really pays off… the added sweetness and creaminess really makes the tea taste like a nutty dessert. For anyone worried about the rose petals in the blend, don’t be. They seem to be just for asthetics and I don’t get even a hint of rose in aroma or flavor. Personally, because I’m a fan of florals I’d love to see a strong rose note incorperated into this flavor profile… perhaps I’ll have to experiment and steep this tea with a bag of rose-scented black tea and see how it goes. But it’s really a treat as-is, and I’d happily grab more of this.

Well, I bought a big bag of this some 8 yr ago, in early 2017, and didn’t care for it as much as I liked other TTES #18 teas, so it has been sitting in my tea cupboard ever since. Now that I am re-exploring this variety from Taiwan (also known as Hong Yu, Red Jade, and Ruby 18), I’m giving it another shot. There is still experimentation going on in Taiwan as far as what to do with this variety of tea, which (according to Teapedia) is a large-leaf “cross between Taiwanese wild tea tree (B-607) and a Burmese assamica (B-729)”. Some will make a delicious dark black tea, others a heavily oxidized oolong (“Brandy 18”), and still others will process it as an awful white tea in cake form, hinting that it could be aged like a pu-erh. Some will encourage leafhoppers to feed on the plants as hey do for certain Oriental Beauty oolongs higher in the mountains, and call it “Honey Black”, whilst others will do the same in the Sun Moon Lake vicinity, all with varying success from year to year.

What I’m reviewing now are large, spindly black dry leaves that unfurl to milk-chocolate brown colored leaves after the second steeping, labeled as “organic” but with nothing about leafhoppers. Tealyra doesn’t list it anymore on their site but, thankfully, user eastkyteaguy captured their description when making the entry for it here on Steepster. The same product was also listed here under the company’s former name of Tealuxe, with a somewhat more detailed description captured by user Jason, along with additional reviews. There is concurrence that it is a Sun Moon Lake area product.

I used about 3g in a stainless infusion basket with 8 oz boiling spring water for 2-3 min in both steepings. I got a strong flavor of honey, with notes of apricot, malt, dates and floral fragrances. The dry leaf had little fragrance. I find it good, but not as satisfying as Brandy Oolong 18 by the same company. I’ll give it a rating of 78.

This is a sweet strawberry-leaning hibiscus fruit tea. There is a lot of juicy strawberry flavor, it’s a little candy-like though the tanginess of the hibiscus helps with that a bit. There is a sweet almond flavor in the background. I don’t taste the lavender in the blend at all, despite the fact it is pretty prevalent in the ingredients listing… maybe it was luck of the scoop and it all fell to the bottom of the bag? Will have to reassess as I work my way through this. It is a pleasant tea, but there is nothing really unique or remarkable about it… I know I’ve tasted strawberry hibi fruit teas from T2 and Adagio and probably other places that pretty much had this same sweet strawberry flavor on a hibi fruit tea base. It is a Dethlefsen & Balk blend so I’m sure the deja vu is warranted.

This is one of those “hibiscus and spices” teas that I know are pretty universally disliked on Steepster, but happen to pretty much be my favorite thing ever. While I normally prefer my hibi/fruit teas coldbrewed, I just find something incredibly cozy about warm and syrupy hibiscus mixed with spices… and the extra hydration and Vitamin C at a time of year where my nose seems to constantly drip for three months straight is an added bonus. The hibiscus base is very prevalent in this one with a pleasant tartness, but the pear flavor keeps it from tasting like a generic fruit punch like many hibi/fruit teas. It’s a decent pear flavor, even if a bit subdued. There is a lot of sweet, warming cinnamon that lingers after the sip. I’m really enjoying it, but could not recommend it to those that find hibi “too tart”… there is some apple and pineapple in the blend but I don’t find it adds a lot of sweetness. It’s more akin to a “mulled wine” sort of tea, just with a pear-leaning direction.

It seems the trend lately is caffeine-free coffee teas (which, don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoy!) but sometimes what I am really craving from a coffee tea is the stimulation of coffee as well as the taste, and I have to say this one holds up pretty well. It has a very strong black coffee flavor, which mimicks the flavor well but also comes off just a tad artificial. The dry leaf smells strongly of the cocoa elements but I don’t really taste that in the cup… it just tastes like black coffee with a roasty undertone, as well as a strong hit of cinnamon. I really like the cinnamon, and somehow paired with the black coffee flavor it tastes more like nutmeg to me on the tongue (still very pleasant!) I also like that the base is a combination of roasted yerba mate and black tea, doubling down on the caffeinated potential.

I’ve mostly been drinking this tea plain, but this morning opted for a sweetened vanilla almond milk latte since I’m trying to use up the carton. Adding the sweetened vanilla almond milk really brings out the cocoa notes that were hiding otherwise. Very delicious! A very good coffee alternative for those that like the taste but may have other issues preventing a morning cup o’ joe (for me, the acidity of coffee beans really does a number on my GI!)

Happy New Year, everyone!

While I enjoy turmeric, that enjoyment is typically based around the accompanying spice blend, which often times is far too ginger-heavy for my liking. But this tea is quite nice, with a sweeter cinnamon coming forward on the nose and in the flavor, so the tea isn’t an annoying cup of mouth-burning. The rooty/earthy turmeric note is there and is definitely an acquired taste, but there is a nice orangy note in the background and the cinnamon and licorice root tame any aggressive spiciness of the turm or ginger without being too sweet. And though it may not be marketed as such, this is a pretty effective sleep tea, with lavender, valerian, and passionflower, and it works pretty well for me. It’s both a good and a bad… bad if I just want a turm/ginger-heavy tea for tummy troubles but don’t want to be knocked out, but great for a wind-down before bed (and tastier than I often find “sleepy teas.”)

There’s probably too many contentious ingredients in this blend to really recommend it, but I’m that weird person that likes most contentious ingredients and have been pretty happy with this tea, as a non-aggressively spiced turmeric blend and as a sleep aid.

I think at the time I ordered this I was thinking this would be a hibi/fruit tea with a lignonberry leaning, which appealed highly to me. It is actually something very different, but still incredibly tasty. The base, while including some hibi, is actually composed more of fluffy green blackberry and buchu leaves, but it isn’t really sweet. Sniffing the tea, it has an aroma of berries (leaning towards currant or grape on the nose) with a sort of bright pine needle aroma, and the flavor matches that pretty well. I have no idea exactly what it is in the blend producing that pine note, but I assume it must be the buchu leaf since I’m not particulary familiar with it. It is sort of crisp and a little savory leaning… a bit like rosemary but with a sort of piney finish, and since I love pine/evergreen notes in tea, I really like it! The berry note is rich and tangy, leaning a bit more toward the blueberry/black current line than brighter and sweeter red berries… the name of the tea had me thinking along the lines of cranberries or lingonberries, but it doesn’t really go there. I do really like the fresh pine flavor with the thick black currant notes, though. I don’t find the tea particularly tart (though I’m a terrible judge since I love hibiscus and can drink it plain), but I do think the sort of savory element of the tea would require a certain palate. Definitely a winner for me, though!

This is a Dethlefsen & Balk sourced blend, and I’m uncertain if I’ve had it elsewhere, but I’m really enjoying it. I tried it warm and thought it was fine (I liked the hibiscus/cardamon combination) but it shines more as a coldbrew. It has a nice rich cherry flavor, in the vein of Kool-Aid/Popsicle and lacking any weird medicinal notes. The hibiscus is adding a lot of thick fruit punch notes. That little pop of cardamom in the background is nice even cold. Very quenching. It’s a nice enough cherry-leaning hibiscus fruit tea.