Nuclear forward scattering by 125Te is a viable alternative to conventional 125Te Mössbauer spectroscopy avoiding all source related issues. Using reference compounds with known hyperfine parameters and Te oxides exhibiting stereochemically active lone pairs, we show that nuclear forward scattering by 125Te can be reliably used to extract quadrupole splitting energy and relative isomer shift. The rough correlation between Te-Ocoordination and quadrupole splitting energy as put forward by Takeda and Greenwood (J. Chem. Soc. Dalton, 2207, 1975), is corroborated by the presented results. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. ; Peer reviewed