Tealux

Scheherazade’s Super Sipdown (Long) Weekend #3

Finished this one off while watching the end of Wallander on BBC4 last night. It was about 10.15pm, and on reflection I probably shouldn’t have had black tea that late at night. I listened to some Red Hot Chilli Peppers for a while before I went to bed, and then had some pretty disturbing dreams about an ex boyfriend, so I guess the combination wasn’t a great one.

The tea was good, though, so I can’t regret it that much. Fruity, malty, perfection. On balance, I’m pretty sure I still prefer Butiki’s PTA, but this one runs a close second, and would do in a pinch. Another sad farewell.

I opened samples of two different Tealux Assams last night to compare, and was immediately reminded all over again why I love Assam so much. There’s so much variation between different varieties that it would be almost impossible to get bored of it, and the flavour is always so, so good.

This one reminded me strongly of Butiki’s Premium Taiwanese Assam, both in appearance and scent. That would make sense, I suppose, as they’re both Taiwanese in origin. This one has the same long, thick, twisty black leaves, and it’s insanely fruity to smell.

I gave this about 4 minutes in boiling water, and the resulting liquor was a golden brown with hints of almost ruby. It smells sweet and malty, and these notes carry through into the flavour. To taste, there’s a strong element of dried fruit — raisin particularly. There’s also hints of sweet potato, and the tiniest smidge of grain.

I’d have to compare this side by side with PTA to be more certain of their similarities, and to know which, if any, I prefer overall. This was a delcious cup, though. Black beauty indeed!

I like Tealux’s cherry flavor, and this is no exception. The cherry is good, the black base is good, but as usual this isn’t cherry enough for me. Would like more cherry. I of course added some straight cherry tisane to the second cup. More cherry and it’s really good.
Thank you TheTeaFairy for sending some of this my way.

This is an awesome, fantastic black tea. Love it. Added to my wishlist to remind me to buy some with my next Tealux order.
Thank you TheTeaFairy for sharing this wonderful tea with me.

I cold steeped the rest of the sample from TheTeaFairy — I had about 3 tsps or so from her. So I hot steeped the first time and then confident that it would be more flavourful cold steeped I dumped the rest of the sample in a 500 ml mason jar for a couple of days.

The flavour is about the same on the cold steep too, it doesn’t become more cherry like I had hoped. Therefore, cold or hot, take it as the mood strikes. I think I almost prefer this one warm not because of the flavour but because of the strange comfort of a warm cup of somewhat cherry tea.

Thanks to TheTeaFairy again for this one. It’s actually pretty good. Tastes a lot like cherry candy and I have a feeling the cherry will pop even more when cold brewed so I will do that with the rest of the sample. I did like this cup though. Enough to consider buying it for myself. I kinda like it warm though… There’s something soothing about it.

I do not get any fig whatsoever but who cares, I like this tea. It’s nice to not be disappointed. Of course that also means you’re going to order stuff…

Confectionary coconut flavor is mild and pleasant, the milky oolong is not the best representative of it’s type, but pleasant enough. The coconut shreds, nibbled after second steeping, had no hint of added flavors, and were springy & fresh tasting.
All in all, I’d get this if for some reason the magnificent London Tearoom somehow stopped making their masterful, utterly perfect, Coconut Oolong, but until then, nah.

I do not remember ordering this tea but unfortunately in my excitement to place my first order in months I didn’t take a screen shot of my order so I can’t dispute or even convince myself. It’s just that picking a chocolate and coconut tea is not really like me right now since I just gone through a cupboard of mostly chocolate teas. Maybe I was drunk.

So yeah, coconut in tea doesn’t work for me because the shreds go off quickly and then the tea has this rancid taste which I am highly perceptive of. This one is good still but I know I will have to race through it.

When I think Caribbean breeze I think juicy tropical fruit not chocolatey coconut. So maybe I did order it but I didn’t read the ingredient list, I must have stopped after “sun kissed beaches” and “infinitely blue oceans” which I haven’t seen since 2009 according to my Facebook. When I saw the Dominican album I was like what? 2009? Anyway.

The tea is good for what it is. Coconut and chocolate more or less hand in hand, pleasant base which you can’t taste much of. You can smell the base right after steeping but as it cools the chocolate comes out even more, as does the coconut. This is pretty good!

Don’t know why it’s called “fusion” there isn’t much information on it.

My friend Dexter3657 wrote that she was baffled by this tea yesterday, that it was the strangest black she’s had. She’s right, it’s very unusual.

To me, it feels like India, Taiwan and the Yunnan province had a big party and created this fantastic tea!

It’s hand made, and it shows, beautiful long strands like a nice Taiwanese black.

The colour is a light golden brown, like a wonderful SF Darjeeling.

The smell is fantastic, a mix of honey and molasses. The taste is very caramel like, I also get apple and raisin? A bit of hay like a nice Yunnan. So good. Medium bodied, with zero astringency. As it cools, I definitely get some muscatel notes.

Dexter, you were right my friend, this tea is very different ;-)

I’m sending the last five grams of it to a tea friend (to whom it may concern: see what I did here?), but this is coming back to the cupboard very soon.

Sipdown!

A nice way to start off the morning. I liked this tea, but I don’t think it’s quite beloved enough to make my “must restock” list. It’s got an interesting scent and flavour – however, it easily contaminates other teas or permeable surfaces.

Backlog from yesterday morning, I think.

I have very little white tea, so I keep all of it in a basket along with my measuring spoons, sugar, and my paper filters from DT. This tea is nice, but it’s far too heavily scented to be practical for me to keep, since the smell leaches into my paper filters.

However, I have maybe about 1-2 servings left of this. It will be good to have one tea less in the cupboard!

Since I was on a roll with Chaud Les Marrons, I thought I’d give this other chestnut-flavoured tea a go. It was savoury like before, but the base was a tad more vegetal this time.

I’m still kind of bemused by the fact that the last time I tried this, it tasted like pretzels. Tongues. They’re weird and interesting. shrug

Ahh, sweet delight!

After the unpleasantness that was the Moroccan Mint from The Tea Emporium, I decided to go with a tea I knew I liked. So I got this one brewed up.

The leaf is very fluffy, but I think I added enough so that the tea wasn’t weak. As before, there was a lovely pale golden liquor. This time I thought ahead and added a squirt of agave nectar to the teapot, and it does intensify the flavour.

However, I’ve noticed something really weird this time. The roasty chestnut flavour of this actually gives way to a bready, salty flavour that reminds me of – of all things – pretzels.

Weird, but surprisingly pleasing!

So, yes, perhaps I should have this tea with a bowl of pretzels. I guess this is the chestnut talking?

This tea smells so amazing when it’s dry – sweet and nutty and caramelly – that I couldn’t resist its charms anymore.

Brewed, the chestnut flavour comes out more, while the caramel flavour holds back and is mainly visible in the aftertaste. I definitely do not taste or smell any jasmine.

I’m astonished that the white tea acts as such a good canvas for these flavours, because I always find white tea so mild, and consider it to be a more natural pairing with fruit flavours.

That said, I think this tea would be even better with some sweetener added. I’m also curious to see how these flavours would work with a black base instead of a white one.

Thanks, Ubacat!

Was drinking this at work today. i drank 5 cups of it and the whole time I was thinking, this is weird, and then drank some more, I don’t like this, then drank some more, what does this taste like, and drank some more. This is the strangest black tea I’ve ever drank. Ok I don’t normally like Indian blacks, but this doesn’t taste like an Indian tea to me – I didn’t even realize that until I took a look right now before writing this. This is maybe a tiny bit like a Kenyan black, but not really – it’s just weird.
I can’t even begin to describe it. Thank you TheTeaFairy for letting me experience this. Please let me know what you think of it. You are so eloquent, you will find a way to put this experience into words…..

My first blooming tea. Floral. Had no idea what to expect aside from some research I’d done prior to buying. I knew they were floral and I don’t do floral but really wanted to try one. Maybe the Melon rising sun I also bought won’t be so flowery when it comes to taste.

ETA: The floral wasn’t overpowering at all and there was peach aftertaste so if you enjoy floral teas these would be quite alright. I tried the first steep without additives and the second steep I added a scant tsp of sugar to 500 ml tea. I only did it so I can compare. The sugar was too much, felt like I was drinking sugary water because the tea itself wasn’t as flavourful resteeped and the sugar just wrecked it. All in all I’m not disappointed with purchase. I learned they are showy teas and if you have company and a good pot. Don’t break a beautiful glass gravy boat glass container like I did by pouring boiling water into it unless it’s made to stand the heat. I ended up having to fish the flower out and move it to a mason jar and start over after Lake Ontario was all over my counter.

PS. Habs stick it to Bruins in game #7, yo!

Sipdown!

I overleafed this a bit in order to use it all up, and I have to admit that it worked surprisingly well when overleafed. It was still really herbal and medicinal smelling, but eh, I need to pare down my cupboard.

Thanks, Ubacat!

And here we go – with this tea, I try tulsi for the first time.

It’s….different? Definitely an acquired taste. When I learned that tulsi was a form of basil, I was kind of mentally expecting to drink watered-down pesto, but this is really different from that. I’m not getting that sort of traditional basil flavour at all, aside from some sweetness.

Instead, what I’m tasting is a medicinal kind of flavour that reminds me a lot of guayusa. But it’s also kind of like licorice?

Since I have never had tulsi before, I don’t know what to make of it. I did get a few more samples of different kinds in a swap though, so we’ll see.

Thanks for the sample, Ubacat!

Edit: I realized it makes me think of chamomile, too.

I can’t remember who sent this tea to me (I’m sorry.. but thank you so much!) and I’ve had it for a long time so it’s time to drink it! Its scent is buttery and leafy – perhaps a little less creamy-smelling than other milk oolongs I’ve had, but it smells yummy.

Sipping… wow, this is much more sugary than I was expecting! I’m pleasantly surprised. It’s a little creamy, perhaps not as creamy or buttery as I would have liked, but the when it’s paired with the sugar, it’s lovely… really lovely. There is a leafy flavor that sits nicely in the background, not overwhelming anything. The finish is crisp, sparkling and with a sweet mineral note.

I’m not sure why I was thinking that I wouldn’t be that impressed with this one, but this is a very nice, unique milk oolong.

Given the success I had with Tealux’s Cream Irish Breakfast yesterday evening I decided to follow it up with Irish Morning today. I definitely prefer the other. This one is a little more weak, more watery if you will. I did follow steeping instructions and I even overleafed a bit because I had about 3 tsps and I only used 16 oz water. I did combine two steeps though, which is something I didn’t do last night. However, as much as I love coconut flavouring, the shreds of coconut in tea tend to go off quickly and even when they are not off there’s something about the smell and taste I do not like. As soon as I smelled the tea I knew there was coconut in there because it had a faint smell of something acrid. like milk gone sour or something. I don’t know how to explain. Like rancid. But it was barely there and only huffing the ziploc bag a few times I picked it up so most people would likely not notice it. If only my palate was as good as my nose.

I have a thing for smelling things. All the time. I smell all food stuffs all the time. I don’t mean to say that I go around my fridge just sniffing things. But before use, everything gets sniffed. I open a leg of lamb, I smell it. I open bread, I smell it. Not to check if it’s off because everything is fresh at chateau nxtdoor but I am used to smelling things so it’s become a habit I can’t break. I’m pretty OCD about it. It’s gotten to the point that I probably couldn’t eat or drink something without smelling it. I sit at the restaurant, the salad comes, I smell it. The wine comes, I smell it. You get the picture. You do this for YEARS and I assure you, you will have a fantastic scent memory.

So yeah, I am not enjoying the aftertaste of the acrid coconut in here. I will certainly finish the pot that I made, but unlike Irish Cream Breakfast, for me this will be one I stay away from. No rating.

Much thanks to TheTeaFairy for the chance.

I like this tea a lot even though I rarely go for “morning” teas or teas that would imply a kick. Because kick to me is bitter/astringent/strong — same way I would describe a coffee with a kick. I would have never picked this for myself. In fact, I looked at it before placing my Tealux order and decided against it.

Tonight, I need this. I wake up at 3.46 am each day so I can be at work for 4.15 am. By 7 pm I’m starting to fade usually but it’s Friday night and I’m fighting it. Fighting it with this. (Ok, we went to a nearby Italian bakery so I also fought it with an Americano + Baileys). And canoli. Leave the gun, take the canoli. :)

Thanks to TheTeaFairy for this treat. So so good. Slightly bitter, slightly. 1 tsp for 8 oz, 90C. I added sugar and dairy free Irish cream creamer. Sorry, redundant, I know, but it’s what it is called!

This tea is good. Buy it on your next Tealux order. :) I will.

I’ve recently discovered that not only do I like dark oolongs, but I really like AGED dark oolongs. This one is fantastic. LOVE IT!!!
It’s everything that I love about dark oolong, roasty and nutty, but then it’s just so much more. It’s like dark oolong on steroids, but it’s not offensive, it’s not too much, it’s not really that smokey. Awesome is all I have to say.

I don’t really like green oolong – I usually find them to be too floral for my tastes.
I love swapping because generous people send you tea that is outside your comfort zone.
This is the second green oolong that TheTeaFairy has sent me that I’ve liked.
Am I rethinking my position on green oolong? Not really, I still prefer the darker ones.
I don’t know enough about this type of tea to be able to choose one that would be green without being crazy floral. I liked this one because it’s not floral.
I like it, it’s light, refreshing, easy to drink – thank you for sending me one of your favorites (I would have thought this isn’t floral enough for you?)

Backlog from last night:

Sipdown! I’m trying to get a few in before I get a deluge of tea over the next week or so, and this one was a prime candidate. I’m seriously considering restocking this once I break my tea buying hiatus in September, as I don’t have any cherry black teas in my cupboard, and that’s a flavour I really like (that or Nina’s Quatre Fruits Rouge, which is a red berry mix).

What I really love about this one is the scent of the figs that mingles with the cherries. It’s deep and dark and sweet, like molasses or burnt sugar – by the way, brown sugar is an excellent accompaniment to this.

Bumping the rating up a bit to 80. Thanks so much to Ubacat for sending me a sample of this a few months ago!