Tealyra (formerly Tealux)

Not bad. i liked the puerh base, but i found myself wishing somewhat for more of a flavour commitment. i like peppermint tea, and i like vanilla, but despite there being 3 significant taste contributers i still didn’t really get a solid flavour direction or blend. not bad, but just kindof there.

a vanilla based mint where the mint is strong and the vanilla subtle so, a 60/40 mix. or the same ration with a vanilla with a fresher taste of mint? hmmm…. wonder if the puerh was responsible for the murkiness? might be more successful with a black instead….

i any case— not bad, but not great.

OOPS! forgot to thank cavocorax for this insightful sample! i am having one of those days!!!

It is stinking hot in TO again, and it ain’t gonna let up ‘til the weekend apparently, so I’ll be drinking a lot of cold brews (tea and other brews) in the next few days.

This comes across quite floral when cold brewed, with a hint of lychee after-taste. I don’t really like floral tea’s, but it so freaking humid, that I don’t care. It’s cold. No peach flavour comes in the cold brew. It’s drinkable, and if the extreme heat keeps up, I’ll probably finish this by the end of the week.

Thanks again to JustJames for this sample.

On opening the bag, the dry leaf does smell like lychee. I don’t smell too much of the peach. I have to admit, I love lychee in syrup, but I didn’t imagine the taste translating well in a tea, but this was ok.

The black tea base wasn’t so strong that it didn’t allow the lychee note to come through. I found the lychee flavour as a lingering aftertaste. The next time I brew this one up, I’ll add sweetener to see if more lychee flavour will come out.

Thank you JustJames for sending me this one to sample!

Hmmm. This is a touch odd. It’s earthy and minty and I guess there’s vanilla but the latter two ingredients make me think of cotton candy. That’s been dropped in dirt? And, even with that in mind, I’m still not quite sure where to rate it. It’s not bad, but that cocoa spice pu-erh I had from tealux is just so much better in comparison – I probably wouldn’t re-buy this one.

The sample sizes are pretty decent though for $1.50. Definiately 5 cups or so in there, and I scooped them up when everything was 25% off last month!

So the rule is I will not add creamer to a tea until I have had it first without it because I’m still in the process of figuring out all the differences between teas. Can’t learn squat if they all taste like hazelnut creamer. Most times I won’t add creamer at all (North African Mint and hazelnut creamer anyone? Didn’t think so) but some of the chocolate teas are screaming for it.

This tea, which I should not be having at 10 pm, tastes a little like java but mostly like mate. Can’t taste any black tea, nor was I able to smell it. Also not entirely sure about vanilla. While I might not be able to pick out anything specific beyond light coffee, it all comes together to make a tasty tea.

See, Dexter3657 ? I told you you’re batting a thousand today.

okay, honestly, the first time i tried this tea it fell very flat and i was unimpressed. however, i figured i would give it another go seeing as it’s sitting in my cupboard.

tealux’s lychee raspberry is brilliant… but i’m afraid that my second go round with their lychee peach has not improved my opinion.

i love lychee and peach,but i taste neither in this blend. what i do taste is a creamy tobacco flavour. not like the smell of expensive pipe tobacco which can be nice, but something more acrid.

not more than a marginal grade from me…

Thanks to SIL for this one!
The over all taste of this is good but the flavor description and name don’t really add up. I LOVE the addition of the popcorn, I do! However, the black tea base is tremendously weak, the maple flavor is barely there, and the cinnamon is on the lighter side as well. This tastes more like an herbal tea than a flavored black tea to me.

If everything were about X 10 – I would think this is the perfect flavor combo. It’s just really on the light side.

BUT…what I can taste I do like! I just wish it had more POP!

Dry this smells like The Tea Store’s Candy Cane.
It’s minty, but not overly so. I like this one quite a bit, I’ll probably add this one to my morning pu-erh s.
It’s similar in taste to candy cane, not as strong though, & nit as much vanilla.
I wish taste wise this was more like the vanilla mint mate from my local tea store.
But still pretty yummy.

I’m not sure how i feel about this one. It’s minty for sure, but not overly vanilla-y. There’s an under taste to this though that is weird. it might be the mint mixing with the puerh and vanilla… not sure.

I’m so glad I ordered more of this. The more I drink it the more I like it. I drank it all day at work yesterday, and it just goes down so smoothly. And it smells so good. Love it.

And another sipdown. Again, really just clearing space in my tea cupboard for the new (larger) bag to arrive.

I’ve been steeping this at a slightly higher temp than I did originally, and the flavours are richer tasting. And it smells so good!

I’ll freely admit that I bought this one because of the name. Butterscotch Potion. It just sounds so rich and decadent. I really like the smell of it, both dry and steeped. It does smell of butterscotch.

Taste-wise, it’s not as rich tasting as I expected it to be, but that could be operator error. I steeped it at 80C instead of the 90C that was recommended, mainly because I’d rather have a weak tea than an astringent one. I’ll try re-steeping at 90C later and see if that makes a difference.

It does remind me of some coconut white teas I’ve had, but there is that definite butterscotch taste that makes it unique. I was worried that the peppercorns would give it too much of a bite, but all of the flavours blend smoothly. I’ll buy this one again if/when I make another Tealux order (I have a LOT of tea to go through first. I wish some of my friends were tea obsessed so I could swap or split orders with them).

Oh wow this is good. This is really good. Amazing even.
What a lovely surprise… as I was having a rather low/crappy day and this just made it so much better!!
I’m noticing an intense butterscotch note all through the sip and aftertaste, along with a slightly astringent white note. Also, it is very sweet, like eating a butterscotch candy. Seriously, I have that aftertaste lingering long after a sip. and now I’m sad that my mug is empty.
First infusion was beyond stellar. I’d rate it 95. Second was predictably weaker and less round in flavour so I’d go with 83… which leaves the true score somewhere in the middle! (since I can’t see a number as I move the slider).
There will be future orders of this. I am so in love, this potion has certainly worked it’s magic on me!

soooo this tea confuses me. It’s got cinnamon in it and popcorn. In a maple tea that’s supposed to be like when “canadians” pour maple syrup into the snow and eat it after rolling it onto a stick.

This tea? tastes NOTHING LIKE THAT. This tea actually reminds me of one of simpson and vails tea, though i can’t for the life of me remember which, though i’m leaning towards the applecinnamon coffee cake one that i’ve tried,,or was it the cinnamon chocolate brownie. Either way? Not really maple syrup. It’s a relatively decent enough tea but it loses points for not being the maple treat that I wanted it to be (not that i wanted it to be like della terra’s maple tea…that was liquid maple syrup).

Sipdown! 797. This tastes a bit funky tonight… I think it’s due to the baggie-storage. Still has the tasty bakey notes, but almost a bit of a stale-ish flavour. Sigh. Oh well. I’d still order this again, just be a bit more careful in terms of storage.

Another tea I picked up from Tealux, woo! Figured I’d get a start on this one since I’m splitting the sample package with Raritea.

Anyhow! The tea just looks like a dark oolong or black to me; I never would have guessed that it’s a “purple” tea at all. It brews up kind of brownish, but not all that dark. When I took a sniff of my mug downstairs, all I could smell was charcoal, which didn’t impress me.

I now have let the tea cool down as per usual, and took a sip…. this stuff is awesome!! It’s deliciously sweet, with a bakey dark oolong note but MUCH more sweetness than I’m used to. A honey sweetness, not rock sugar. And with definite oolong flavours. This is certainly a surprise – I had kind of written this one off once it smelled all burny. Sure, I like burny, but that hadn’t been what I’d been expecting. So I’m stoked that it tastes this good :D I’d definitely pick it up again… it’s very interesting! And yummy. Satisfies cravings for a good solid tea as well as cravings for sweets :)

ETA: I think I saw this in the note from Tea Sipper as well: the second infusion isn’t great. I did just eat, so to be fair, that could be influencing my tastebuds a bit, but I’m really not tasting too much anymore. Just a sweetish, very lightly flavoured dark oolong. Perhaps I should have gone with a longer infusion (I went with 2.5 min). Great first infusion, though!

Sipdown! 267/365!

This was yummy. Creamy and caramelly and sweet. I’ve found various versions of this from other companies and enjoy them all, so once day perhaps I’ll get to restock this or a variant! A nice, light, desserty evening blend.

Technically from Tealux (aka it’s old). Still yummy; tastes creamy and sweet and quite enjoyable.

Yummy desserty, light tea. Enough left for a couple more mugs, I think – so I’ll throw it in the sipdown bin. A nice change from straight tea (though a touch artificial, to be fair).

Looks like I’ll be doing some tea-adding in the near future…

Anyhow. This tea! Smells absolutely divine. Much like versions of Coconut Creme from various tea companies, but this doesn’t look like them (there are peppercorns), nor is this supposed to contain coconut. However… it definitely tastes much like it. There is supposed to be cinnamon in here, but I’m not really picking up on it. Mostly I’m tasting a sweet, coconutty white tea. I suppose it could be the butterscotch that’s coming off as coconut… I’m getting a bit of a dark background flavour here though, that I don’t recall tasting with Coconut Creme. And, I feel like the peppercorns are coming through a bit. Similar blend though! I was expecting it to be more like DavidsTea’s Buttercream, which it isn’t (unless my taste buds/memory are misleading me, and that’s what it does taste like, not Coconut Creme!) Which is actually increasingly possible the more I think about it…

Regardless, I like this. A light, sweet, desserty tea. I’m glad I just have a sample though, since it’s pretty similar to something I have in my cupboard!

And thus begins my foray into Tealux’s teas…

ETA: Yep. I still can’t figure out which tea this reminds me of. One of those two. But, there is definitely cinnamon in here (noticeable in the second infusion), which is NOT in either of the other two. It was already obvious that it wasn’t an identical blend to either of the two I mentioned, just has many similarities. Good, though.

Another one I didn’t try yet from my Tealux order… and I’m the first to write a tasting note! I’m hoping that it is because this one is so new to Tealux… and not because no Steepsters are ordering from Tealux! I think they introduced it right before I ordered. I love this one! It’s like a cinnamony mapley kettle corn! I’m not sure what the 71% black tea means… though the black tea isn’t a super strong one. But that’s fine, since the flavors here are so nice. An entire piece of popcorn fell into my infuser, so it does have a hint of a popcorn flavor. And I love the combination of the maple and cinnamon. It does actually smell and taste like I added actual maple syrup to this. Since this was a sample, I would definitely order a full two ounces of this (but that wouldn’t be for a while now.) And when I looked on tealux.ca they have the Maple Souchong back in stock! I was worried they were getting rid of that one when they introduced two other maple teas. I’ll have to try that one too.

Well, these leaves aren’t purple and the steep color isn’t purple, so I have no idea where the purple comes from. The steep color is really a light brown. The leaves in the infuser look even blacker than they did dry… very glossy & delectable looking! This is kind of like the charcoal tasting oolong I had the other day, but the taste of this one is better and more complex. I can actually tell this is an oolong. It’s a very full flavor and apparently this has a lot of caffeine. Tealux has a caffeine meter on their packaging and this one is higher than most of the teas I’ve tried from them. The second steep isn’t as tasty as the first one… it tastes more like charcoal. It reminded me of a less-nice campfire with something burning in it that isn’t very good to sit around. Yikes! I’ve tried a few dark oolongs the past few weeks and I don’t think I’m liking them very much. The first cup would get a higher rating though.

Sipdown!

Today with sweetened condensed milk. Because I can.

I now have 150g of English Breakfast from my mom that I need to drink my way through. Sigh. I need to keep working on convincing her that 50g is a maximum for me.