Pine Peak Keemun

Tea of the morning. This is an unusual Keemun. It’s light and fruity with underlying honey notes. There might be a little chocolate, but the plum, raisin, and dried date notes are at the forefront. I pick up the pine – very light and clean – in the smell, but I don’t taste it. There’s no smoke even at the end of the sip. Overall, I like this a lot. For me, this is an afternoon tea. I think the lighter body and soft sweetness of the tea will be wonderful as an afternoon pick-me-up.

Thanks once again to Cameron B. for this sample! I’m not huge on Keemuns mostly because of the kind of smoky note that they can have with them; I am very sensative to smoky notes. However, I requested this one because I wanted to try it out anyway, and it’s been a while since I’ve had a keemun.

This definitely has no smoky notes that I can detect. So yay! It is incredibly fruity, way fruitier than I was expecting. Plums for sure, and raisins. Definitely some underlying grains and malt, and a little honey. Chocolate? No, not really. Just a very fruity black tea. I’m not the biggest fan of those fruity notes in my black teas, but it is still a tasty cup. Very smooth, no bitterness or astringency. If you enjoy the fruitiness of some Taiwanese black teas I definitely recommend trying this one.

mmmmm thanks for sharing this one with me terri. I really enjoyed this one from WP. It’s a different sort of keemun than the ones i generally prefer..less malty, more chocolatey. this will be picked up :)

Oh look! Steepster is behaving :-)

Let’s post a review!!

This was one of very few teas I hadn’t tried yet from WP.

I was curious, cause although Keemun are sometimes not my favourite teas to drink when too heavy on the smoke, the taste profile of Pine Peak seemed very different.

Well I agree: definitely not your usual full bodied keemun.

It’s much lighter, and I had to steep longer (for my tastes) and add a bit more leaves to achieve a satisfying cup. Once I did that, it was super tasty.

No trace of smoke or strong earthy notes here.

This is the fruit and grain keemun type. I get raisins and barley mostly. It is sweet and a little malty.

There is some kind of light pine taste to it, a little woodsy especially as it cools down.

I see myself drinking this on a regular basis, as a very nice everyday cup.

It’s raining this afternoon, took out my happy ladybug teapot, girly tea time!

http://instagram.com/p/sdQTcIwh7e/

Thank you TeaTiff for sending some of this one! This tea basically inspired a swap. :D Well, the first cup of this was the last tea brewed by my old kettle, the second steep I had to heat the water with the microwave. Ick. Though I don’t have much money right now, I can’t go without my tea and I already knew which kettle I was buying possibly even years before this one broke. I’m getting a Bodum Bistro 34 ounce electric kettle. Hopefully this one works as long as the other one did!

On to the tea… I’m not sure if maybe the kettle died halfway through boiling because the first steep was pretty light. I used a teaspoon and a half and I DID wait eight minutes for the water to cool… maybe it was my fault. Though the flavor that was there is everything that I think a keemun is. Still so so light! With the second steep, I made sure to use boiled (microwave) water and I also added the teaspoon or so left of my sample to the leaves. It seemed like a ton of leaves but after a six minute steep, the flavor is great. It reminds me of an older harvest of Teavivre’s Premium Hao Ya which I thought of as my favorite keemun…. I just worry about the amount of leaves that must be used to get to that flavor. But I was actually surprised that there wasn’t an oversteeped flavor with six minutes. I think it is what the first steep should have been. Again, could have been the last death throes of my kettle. I certainly won’t be drinking my favorite or highest quality teas when I don’t know what I’m doing with this microwaved water! Sipdowns of some not-favorites will be happening! Hurry up and get here tea kettle!
Steep #1 // 8 min after boiling // 4 min steep (1 1/2 tsp of leaves)
Steep #2 // just boiled // 6 min (1 more tsp added)

Thanks Cameron B for the sample. The wet leaf of this smells similar to the smell I get from puerhs (pond water, but I’m starting to think that what I think of as pond water, y’all call wet earth, and I can accept that). There’s also a cocoa note hidden in there.

I’m almost positive that this is my first Keemun. I’m very happy to report that I didn’t detect any smoke. I did sweeten it so that might have contributed to it, but either way I’m not a smoke fan so I’m glad I don’t taste any. What I get is chocolate and bread and malt. I just can’t get over how much I like black teas. I thought I hated them, but I was so wrong. Never judge a book by its cover, and never judge a tea genre on its cheap bagged tea dust. I don’t know if it’s just because black teas are still “new” to me, but I think they’re becoming my favorite tea.

So this is the second sample I got from Whispering Pines. The last one I had I kinda messed up on the measure so I figured I’d actually measure 1 1/2 tsp (1/2 tbsp) out so then I can have two regular mugs. Well, unfortunately the sample I got had barely 2 tsp in it so I just ended up making the whole sample again anyway. /sigh/ Oh well.
Taste wise I get fruity and kinda smoky, which is very nice. I also get a edge of bitterness which is probly from me using 2 ish tsp for my 12oz mug, but who knows.
I definitely like it better after adding a bit of truvia which tones down the bitterness.
In the end I might order some of this one day or if it’s on sale and I’m putting in an order anyway, but I don’t really feel the need to place an immediate order and hoard all. XD

OK, first off, I don’t recommend spearmint first thing in the morning if you are planning to sample something new afterwards, LOL. Here I am an hour later, & my mouth is still minty fresh, which feels good, but interfered somewhat with the tasting of this tea.

Also, I followed the instructions on the packet, using 1/2 TB, & I really wish I’d just gone with a whole TB, cuz I do tend to like my teas on the strong end of the spectrum, but I want to send the other half to my tea sister Sil, & I’m trying to get better at following instructions in general.

Anyhoo, this is a tasty cup of pre-breakfast tea, though not particularly bold. Very light on the smoke, IMO, with bread notes, & milk chocolate made with that condensed canned milk. It’s nicely sweet, & I’ll have to get an oz so that I can give it a more fair review eventually.

Hooray, my new electric kettle came in the mail today! I could not have been more excited. I filled it up, boiled the water, then dumped it out twice just to make sure there was nothing weird inside. And then I selected this tea to try because I was curious about its contribution to the S’mores that I tasted yesterday. The leaves are very long and thin, twisty and jet black. Very dramatic! The dry smell is somewhat malty, somewhat fruity, and a little musty with some honey notes. Brewed according to package directions! :)

The aroma is not what I expected for a Keemun. For some reason I was under the impression the Keemuns are smoky and earthy. Apparently not all of them! It smells of sweet, syrupy raisins with a hint of spice, along with lovely malty bread notes with brown sugar. It’s like cinnamon raisin bread tea! :P On to the taste! The raisin is definitely here as well, and I think I pick up a touch of spice (cinnamon?). There’s a lovely light grain or bread flavor that segues perfectly into a lovely creaminess near the end of the sip. Somewhere in the middle is a nice earthy cocoa note that lends depth and richness to the overall taste.

This tea is not at all what I expected! Much lighter in color and texture than I thought it would be, and the flavor is not heavy at all. I can definitely see this being the graham cracker in the S’mores blend, with some help from the added cinnamon and marshmallow root. And it’s very delicious on its own too!

The leaves of this tea are long, dark, and twisty and when I see leaves like that I can’t help but think spider legs. And it’s all TheTeaFairy’s fault. Luckily, I’m a spider sympathizer, so it doesn’t bother me :-). Like, maybe spiders are just misunderstood. There’s even a meme about it (warning: contains spider pictures)
http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/4501376/Misunderstood+Spider/

Anyway, this tea lives up to the level of excellence I’ve come to expect from Whispering Pines. It starts out a little earthy, which then gives way to a fresh floral quality. My favorite part though, is the end of the sip which just tastes unbelievably refreshing and pure, like I just drank out of a crystal clear stream. Is this what pine tastes like? If so, more of that please! Also, thanks to boychik for recommending that I use a full tbsp of leaf. It turned out great that way!