Tealux

At first steep, I tasted mushrooms, and after second and third, there was a grassy woody taste.

This one is delightful. The cherry doesn’t taste fake. It would be wonderful iced.

Pssst… Steepster… Did I ever tell you how much I love oolongs? Cause yeah…I do very, very much!!

This afternoon, I felt fancy…I’m a total tea snob, not gonna lie. Plus I’m a girly girl, so sometimes…occasionally…I pull out my really fancy gears.

That’s what I did today, and it made me really happy!

Now the tea. It’s lovely.

It Osmanthus oolong so be fully aware that it’s very floral and also fruity.

Unlike some others I have tried, this one doesn’t feel soapy in the mouth.

It has a very distinctive taste of peach, to the point that one might think it’s peach scented but it’s not.

Very creamy with a nice body. It’s not overly green, but it is somewhat grassy.

Also, for the price, this tea is an awesome deal. Beautifully rolled and crafted, large leaves when they open up.

I love it and it was the perfect companion to fit my precious antique teawares this afternoon.

Pics of the session:

http://instagram.com/p/yz1jN7Qh2-/

http://instagram.com/p/yz3Ds1wh7S/

http://instagram.com/p/yz4IMkQh98/

http://instagram.com/p/yz5SiewhxD/

this tea has so much flavor and aroma , kinda smells like chocolate at first whiff

Tastes very similar to Forever Nuts from David’s Tea.

Very sweet honey notes.

Very mild.

Very nice with slight honey taste.

Actual sipdown! I’m not updating my sipdown challenge for this particular tea because I’d already logged it as sipdown #25 two years ago, until I found a one-cup sample today which I took from the EU TTB before receiving the bigger sample in my swap with KittyLovesTea. So it’s been gone from my virtual cupboard for a long time, but now it really is sipped down. It’s lost a lot of the flavour I remember from back then, but what’s left is still tasty. In fact, the passion fruit note seems more prominent than it previously was, because I couldn’t identify it originally but it’s quite obviously passion fruit now. I might bump my rating up a point or two from 67 to reflect that.

Sipdown! (25/312)

This one came from KittyLovesTea, though I don’t know if it was from our regular swap or the Secret Pumpkin. Anyway, thanks Kayleigh!

I’ve had this for a while, and always just expected it to be ‘meh’ so never really got excited to drink it. I put it in my ‘to drink’ box as part of my sipdown challenge, though, and decided to have a cup a few days back. To my surprise, I really enjoyed it! To which I owe the tea, company and Kitty an apology. I’ve been drinking it ever since, and just had my final cup now. The oolong is fairly dark, and slightly nutty, and the flavours kind of meld together so that it seems quite natural. It’s definitely juicy, and fruity, but I’m not sure I’d be able to identify which fruits exactly are involved if I didn’t already know. The rose comes up as a vaguely floral aftertaste. This is a nice summery tea, and if I had more I would probably try cold steeping in the summer. But I don’t, so I won’t – it’s good, but I have others I’d be more likely to restock.

Ooh this was refreshing. The green tea was clean and the grape was fruity and did not taste fake. It would be great iced, but it’s not that time of year. There is some flavoring in this tea – I’d like to know what it is and if it is artificial. The fruit flavour disappears with multiple steepings.

This is the first tea I’m trying from my Tealux order. I wanted to know what the fuss with Milk Oolong is all about.
It tastes like buttered popcorn. There is no bitterness at all.

This has been in my cupboard for awhile and I’ve never left a review. I knew I didn’t like it because I wrote something on the package but I thought I’d give it another try.

NOPE, this tea is horrible. I don’t know what lotus tastes like but I just don’t like this. It’s not artificial tasting .,…just bad.

Bought 25 grams of this in my last rather large Tealux order of herbals. Wanted to see if I can find anything good. This one sounded awesome. Alas, hibiscus makes everything so tart and you need to load your cup with sugar to overcome that. Ugh. WHY??? Especially for those trying to cut down on their sugar, or eliminate it altogether, this tea is impossible to drink unless one really fancies tartness. I went with a truvia package to try to take the edge off but ended up throwing some honey in there. Either that or dump the glass.

This is a really nice floral green oolong. It’s twisted, not rolled, and the dry leaf smells quite sweet and a little bit floral. The scent during the first infusion was amazing! Sweet and floral, and not just generic floral but really specifically lilac. It tastes fresh, sweet, floral, and very smooth. I think I’m on the 4th or 5th steeping western-style (I’ve lost track) and it’s definitely losing its flavour but it’s still pretty nice.

The steeping instructions suggest 1-1.5 tsp per 8oz, 175F/80C water, 1.5-2min steep time. This is less tea and a much hotter water temperature than what I found when I went looking online for gyokuro steeping instructions! So, I went with 1.5 tsp, 8-10oz water, I overcooled the water a bit, so the final steeping temperature was around 70C (which was fine with me, that high temp was making me nervous), and did a 1.5min steep to start, 2min for the second. This actually turned out really well – it’s a nice, savoury, vegetal tea, tastes very green and spinachy, with just a bit of not-unpleasant bitterness and astringency. I notice that there’s some tea dust in the bottom of my cup, small enough to escape my mesh strainer, so that might be part of why it got a bit bitter near the end of the cup. Either way, I’ve decided I like gyokuro, and look forward to experimenting with different ways of steeping it.

I don’t know what an osmanthus flower smells like, but this is a pretty nice oolong. The dry tea actually smells really fruity, not particularly floral. The flavour is a nice blend of floral and fruity (and it is really peachy), with a creamy, vegetal oolong base. There’s a long finish, with a slight mineral bitterness at the end.

This is a pretty good flavoured tea. The fragrance as it steeps really does smell like oatmeal raisin cookies! The base tea is smooth and doesn’t conflict too much with the flavour, in fact I think it might be adding to the raisin notes a bit. Delicious!

I don’t know, you guys, this is called “jasmine black” but this certainly isn’t the most oxidized tea I’ve ever had. :) The dry leaves are kind of a mix of greener and darker brown leaves, but once you steep them they’re pretty much uniformly green. The liquor is kind of a golden colour. I was drinking it earlier today while doing a bunch of other things, so I wasn’t really paying attention, but I remember it tasting mostly like jasmine. I steeped the leaves twice, so it must have been pretty good! There was no soapiness or bitterness. This might be a good alternative to traditional green jasmine teas if you’re looking for something that’s a bit more forgiving, less likely to get bitter or astringent if you oversteep or use water that’s too hot.

Tealux has two Jin Xuan oolongs: this one, and the “Milk Jin Xuan Taiwanese Oolong”. I’m not doing a head to head comparison today, just comparing this against my memory of the other one (which I’ve had, and enjoyed, several times). Dry, these leaves smell much more natural – vegetal and a bit sweet, but none of the candy-like fragrance of the other one (which I continue to believe must be flavoured). Brewed, this is also less over-the-top milky sweet, and more like just a regular unroasted greenish oolong. There’s a definite sweetness to the aftertaste and creaminess to the mouthfeel that I believe is supposed to be characteristic of this varietal. It’s very pleasant to drink, but I’m not finding it particularly interesting, if that makes any sense.

This is another chai-without-the-tea blend, though it is a lot heavier on the cardamom and also has rose petals. I like the extra cardamom (might have gone through and crushed each of the pods before steeping to enhance the flavour, lol) and can’t really taste the rose. There’s a really obvious sweetness and throat-coating-ness to this from the licorice root, which I don’t hate but wasn’t really in the mood for when I steeped this. Meh, I think I’ll have to just try it again another time.

Interesting! I like this but don’t love it. The dry tea smells strongly of spices – mostly ginger and clove. It’s interesting to try a “chai” blend that doesn’t have cinnamon dominating the spices! As it steeps, the earthy scent of pu-erh and a bit of maple add their scents to the spices. The flavours are actually pretty well balanced. You can definitely taste the pu-erh, the spiciness (I’m not really getting individual spice flavours, they all blend together pretty well), and just a hint of sweetness from the maple. Hang on, let me try the 2nd half of the cup with some milk and sugar. Hmmm… so the maple and the spices definitely benefit from the milk and sugar, but now the pu-erh base suddenly seems a bit out of place – I don’t usually go for “damp earth” flavours in my desserts, you know? I don’t think I’ve quite made my mind up about this tea yet.

From the SSTTB #2…I woke up all sorts of sinus-y this morning. Nose was stuffed up, and eyes were super crusted over (not sure if still possible infection or just environmental issues) so I opted to have this one today, as I did not have it yesterday with the pu erh as I had thought I might.

I had this twice. Both times I had it sweetened with milk. I found it to be rich and mildly spicy, but not over the top. It was also strong enough to feel like a nice chai. Considering that most of my chai teas these days are combos like Pumpkin Chai or Chocolate Chili Chai, it was nice to have this one as a straight chai. I think I might like to mix this with some pu erh and sweeten with maple next time.

I don’t think that this is my ultimate chai blend, but it isn’t bad. I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure I would seek it out. I think I am happy enough with the local ones I can get over this one. Still, glad to have tried it. Will try it once or twice more, then pass the rest on to someone who wants to try it.

I opened this bag and was a bit overwhelmed by the scent – very caramel but also kind of boozy, like a caramel flavoured liqueur. It’s pretty intense while steeping too. I put a heaping teaspoon in a bag (hooray for remembering that rooibos + mesh filter basket = badness) and just let it hang out in the mug while sipping, so the steeping time is a bit vague but in the realm of 5+ minutes. This is actually pretty good! Slightly sweet and good caramel flavour, without being too weird or artificial-tasting. A good after-dinner caffeine-free tea.