Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White blend.
Where to Buy: Tealyra
Tea Description:
The delicious sweet creaminess of butterscotch that is popular the world over now melts seamlessly into your favourite tea! Exclusively blended by Tealux’s expert tea artisans and not available to buy from anywhere else, Butterscotch Potion is certified organic.
Light and delicate organic white tea forms the base of the blend, melting into mid-notes of spicy pink peppercorn and cinnamon and balancing out the sweet, creamy top notes of marigold and natural butterscotch flavoring. The natural sweetness of butterscotch is perfectly complemented by the deep but never overpowering spiciness of pepper and cinnamon. Producing a light gold-coloured infusion when steeped in hot water, Butterscotch potion is the perfect naturally sweet treat for any time of the day.
Ingredients: Organic White Tea, Organic Cinnamon, Organic Pink Peppercorn, Organic Marigolds, Natural Flavors
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Let me start by clearing something up from what I understand. Originally I bought this tea from Tealux which is a well known tea company across Europe and America and for good reason. However, when I went to get the information and links for this review I found that they have since changed their name. So Tealux does not exist any more and is instead replaced by Tealyra as of the start of October 2015. We are ensured that the company itself is remaining the same in regards to suppliers and blends for what it has to offer, but that the head office has decided to change their name which in turn changes the name of the company and ergo the website. This means that even though my bag says Tealux on it that any orders under the new name of Tealyra will contain the same blend but in a different bag. With this new information dealt with lets get down to the review.
Butterscotch is a pudding I remember well from my school days and thinking about it again has put a smile on my face. For anyone that has not tried butterscotch before the best way I can describe it’s flavour is a mixture of toffee, caramel, treacle and cream all in one delicious goo. A tall order for a tea but I’m excited to try it non the less.
Upon opening the packet I am met with a large leaf and floral blend, which was not quite as I imagined it somehow. I was expecting pieces of butterscotch in the blend to create the flavour, instead we have ‘natural flavours’ in their place to create a synthetic version. With that in mind I give it a sniff, and while it’s sweet (and again floral) it just is not butterscotch like. It does smell creamy and well it’s still a pleasant scent but not quite right.
This will be interesting! I put two teaspoons of leaf (as it’s large leaf) into my steeping mug with 90C water for roughly 3-4 minutes.
The resulting tea liquid is golden brown in colour and bares a sweet scent that actually does resemble butterscotch rather well. Less floral than it’s raw blend form but not as creamy or thick as actual butterscotch.
In terms of flavour this is very pleasant, a dark, toffee and treacle mix (without a lot of sweetness) with some creamy, floral undertones that linger in the after taste. It’s not bitter but I think the flavours would be enhanced a bit better with some sugar or honey, just to make it more butterscotch like. Even without anything extra it still does have a butterscotch essence and though it may not be perfect it’s still very well created.
As it cools it becomes creamier and a little thicker in the after taste, particularly the floral tones. At this point I can taste the white tea a little better and it’s also becoming increasingly dry.
Overall I would say this blend lives up to it’s name. It’s butterscotch enough to please the nostalgia of my youth for little to no calories in the process. Both of those facts make this blend a winner.
Nettle Leaf Herbal Tea from Tealux
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal/Tisane
Where to Buy: Tealux
Tea Description:
It may be a brash statement to say that one prickly green herb is the panacea for almost everything that ails you; but, in the case of stinging nettles, it’s mostly true. If there’s one plant to have on hand at all times that provides a cure for arthritis, an herbal treatment for allergies, relieves hair loss, treats Celiac disease, bleeding, bladder infections, skin complaints, neurological disorders and a long list of other conditions — it’s nettle leaf.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
So after Butiki closed up shop they put together two ‘travelling tea boxes’ for Steepster; one was an educational box with samples of various straight/pure teas and the other was a box of just herbal ingredients so people could try blending their own teas. While I didn’t participate in the Educational box I did get in on the herbal one! Since I was the only Canadian on the list, I was at the end of the shipping list to save people some shipping costs (darn postage; why do you have to be so expensive!?). Along the journey, other herbal ingredients were added to the box including this Nettle Leaf tea from Tealux!
This is one of a few ingredients in the box that I’ve either never had or never had plain; the latter in this case. Before mixing it with anything else, I wanted to try it on its own to know what I’m working with flavour wise – this also gave me a good opportunity to review it! I brewed up about sixteen ounces of this and had half of it hot, and the second half iced. Steeped up this has a very dark, swampy olive green colour. It’s both pretty and kind of intimidating. It reminds me a lot visually of what steeped up mulberry leaf looks like.
I started off by trying out the hot half of the two versions. I found that while this tasted very, very grassy with a bit of sweetness and also a bit of bitterness that along with those bold flavours was an equally bold medicinal kind of taste and aroma. It reminded me a little bit of the smell of a dentists’ office – an environment I’ve had a lot of exposure to recently. Of the two halves, this was definitely the one I least liked.
And on the note of ‘medicinal’ stuff – apparently there are a whole lot of health claims for drinking nettle leaf tea. I want to be really clear that I’m no expert on the health claims here nor do I necessarily believe all of them; and that’s definitely not why I’m drinking this tea. My personal belief is that any ‘health benefits’ I get from tea is a great added bonus, but I completely drink tea for the taste – and I review it for the sense of community, and to learn from other people’s experiences.
The iced version of this was very similar; incredibly grassy with sweet and pleasant bitter notes – however I didn’t taste anything especially medicinal and the aroma seemed less powerful too. It was just the taste of very obviously herbal tea. I’d definitely drink this plain again were it iced; I’m not so sure I’d be as willing to try it hot again unless it was sweetened, and I don’t normally sweeten my tea so that’s probably just a safe no on that front.
At least it gave me some good ideas of what to blend this with for my next herbal mix! Or I might just finish it off plain too; this was one of the ingredients in the box that was actually in a reasonably small quantity.
Summer Solstice Herbal Tea from Tealux
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Fruit/Herbal Tisane
Where to Buy: Tealux
Tea Description:
Summer solstice is the name for the mythical night of the 21st of June ‘ the shortest night of the year. Midsummer is often described as a pause in-between a change in nature and provides us with the opportunity to pause for a moment in order to align ourselves with the energy changes of the natural forces. We have united the taste of ripe sun fruits and fresh herbs with the Swedish midsummer tradition of blossoms, in order to keep the rays of sun a little while longer in your cup.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
It’s not quite the Summer Solstice yet, but the weather is definitely getting warmer! Perhaps that’s why this particular blend really spoke to me today. It’s hard to tell from the description exactly what you’re going to get, so I jumped right in and brewed up a cup. The first thing of note is the size of the fruit pieces contained in this blend. There are whole raspberries, generous slices of freeze-dried strawberry, and large pieces of apple, pineapple and papaya (about 1 inch square.) There are smaller pieces of hibiscus, small flakes of nettle leaves, and a scattering of sunflower blossoms. The blend as a whole is bright and colourful – very summery-looking. It smells quite rich and fruity, rather in the manner of fruit cake.
I used approximately 2 tsp of leaf, and gave it 4 minutes in boiling water. It’s by no means easy to measure, due to the large leaf size, but I did my best! The resulting liquor is golden brown, and the scent is mildly fruity – I’m picking up blackberry and coconut primarily.
To taste, the raspberry and strawberry are a lot more prominent than I thought they might be. They’re juicy and natural-tasting, sweet initially and then a little tart. The more “tropical” flavours develop in the mid-sip; a lot of coconut, a hint of pineapple, and a slight pepperiness from the papaya. It’s a slightly odd combination, like two halves of two different teas have been unexpectedly brought together. It’s not unpleasant, but the transition from summer berries to tropical fruit is a little jarring. The fruit flavours linger well into the aftertaste, and I can detect a splash of blackberry at this point. It’s tart and a little sour, but again incredibly juicy, and I could see this working well with the initial strawberry/raspberry combination. Somehow, though, it’s not quite what I wanted after the tropical explosion that preceded it.
I quite like this one, purely for it’s accurate fruit flavours and sheer juciness. It’s a great thirst quencher on a warm day. I would have preferred it to be either berry or tropical, though, rather than both. The two flavour sets aren’t a brilliant match to begin with, and nothing is gained when they have to compete with each other for dominance. Still, it’s a pleasing cup on the whole, and I can imagine it working well iced in the warmer months to come.
