Whispering Pines Tea Company

Happy 2025! I’ve been enjoying this ounce of tea from Daylon on special occasions, such as finally regaining my sense of smell after spending a week with a cold. I will need to see how much Whispering Pines charges to ship to Canada, as this tea is as lovely as all the notes on Steepster suggest. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

Wow, this tea is fruity and sweet! The dry aroma is of blackberry, strawberry, caramel, and malt. The first steep has notes of blackberry, strawberry, muscatel, honey, caramel, bread, and malt. I get a lot more muscatel and caramel in steep two, as well as some velvety tannins. There’s a fuzzy, fruity, sweet, lingering aftertaste. I continue to get stewed berries and muscatel in steeps three through six, along with lots of caramel sweetness. By steep seven, bread, malt, and wood become more apparent, though there’s still plenty of berries and muscatel. The final steeps have notes of raisin, muscatel, faint berries, honey, bread, wood, malt, and tannins. (Yes, even the last few steeps of this tea are special.)

This tea is a crowd pleaser for a reason! It’s probably too sweet to be a daily drinker for me, but it’s a wonderfully decadent treat. Those jammy berry notes make me smile.

Given to me as a sample in my most recent WP order. I’ve pretty much stopped buying charcoal roasted oolongs, as they all start to taste the same. This one definitely falls into that category, but is on the better end of the charcoal roasted spectrum.

I made a jug of this iced yesterday and started to drink it today. It is very nice with a dash of Yuzu citrus sugar from The Spice House. Being diabetic I don’t use a lot of sweetener in my tea, but a half teaspoon in a 12 ounce glass is just right. It’s very mild tasting and I don’t know if it is just the sugar, but it has a sweet flavor that is not overpowering. I remember having this hot a few days ago and not being too impressed. But as an iced tea this is great!

So. On Saturday my air conditioner died. I live on a third (top) floor of an apartment building and my windows face south and west. The air conditioner is the wall type. I submitted a service order immediately but of course the maintenance people don’t come out on a weekend unless it is a dire emergency. Saturday wasn’t too bad, but a heat wave started on Sunday. The maintenance men didn’t come until late Wednesday afternoon with a re-furbished unit from the 1980. You might think having my rent increase by 27% over 5 years would buy me better service. Hmph.

Anyway. The new-to-me air conditioner works great. After 4 days of temps between 80 and 86 in my apartment I woke up this morning cold! I drank two cups of coffee and then decided to have some hot tea. I have had this bag for a while now and decided it was time to try it.

I was a little underwhelmed. I don’t know why. I think Whispering Pines has some of the very best tea out there. Top quality. It was smooth enough, but no flavor. It could be the mouth sores from chemo. My sense of taste (what little I have) has been affected by chemo. I am not going to rate this one yet. I get a short break from chemo from 9/20 to 10/9 so I will try it again then and see what I think.

Sipdown 58 – 2024

This was smokier than I would’ve thought, up until the last cup which was extremely chocolatey. Overall a fine tea, but I don’t think I need to repurchase.

Sample from my most recent order.

I’ve failed taking notes on this tea in so many different ways.

A tried it first a couple days ago. It was busy and scattered and I never managed to pay enough attention to it to be able to say much.

There’s a flavor that kind of reminded me of roasted, but def not actually roasted. Kind of a warmth to it that I would almost expect from a black, only its not.

I tried it again today and how am I out already? Wow.

And guess what? Yep, another one of those scattered, distracted days where nothing seems to come together for me.

I will say that while there were some interesting flavors the first time I tried it it seemed much harsher this time around and those interesting flavors seemed to be missing. I had been hoping I’ve be able to take a little more time with it and put some names to them. Alas, none of that managed to happen.

I had this again not long after my first note, but have since been sitting on this for a few months.

Decided to try it again today as I took advantage of black Friday and cyber Monday sales and have a bunch of new teas coming in. So time to clean out some stuff I’m not enjoying.

This time I am getting the florals. They are not over powering, but they do keep making me think of soap.

I’m still not getting any real sweetness, though it might be there a bit in the aftertaste.

I might give this one more try, but its likely going to be decluttered to make room for other things. Soap is just not what I want to be thinking of when I’m drinking tea.

I’d been wanting to try an Oriental Beauty and jumped on the chance since I was already making a Whispering Pines order and there one was.

Fresh and hot, it has an almost camphor or eucalyptus vibe going for it in both scent and flavor. That’s not quite right, but these are the descriptors that first came to mind. As I sipped more, maybe this is more woody than anything else?

Really surprised me as most descriptions I have read of this type of tea are more sweet/floral/fruity. I don’t get these flavors at all. Not anywhere near even remotely close.

As it cools, the wood comes out even more. It is drying in the mouth, though I would not call it harsh in any way.

Second steep the wood has calmed down a little, but still there. I’m also actually getting a little bit of a sweet note in the back end of the sip maybe. However this seems to fade as the tea cools. Woody and maybe a little bit earthy flavor is what’s standing out now.

Sipdown 47 – 2024

This is delicious- super chocolatey and rich.

(Summer 2023) Black tea with a generous, complex mix of flavors. Has a meaty, savory quality that I admire, though am not yet fully in love with.

(Summer 2023)

(Summer 2023) Not bad, but a bit quiet aromatically.

(Summer 2023) Wow, far out. Super malty, nutty, with a fresh-baked baklava nose. A real generous earthy mouthful, with hay and dry leaf matter, and a beautiful honeyed, layered smoothness. Paired with sexy generous roast fruit. Keeps delivering and changing through many steeps. Love.

(Summer 2023) Indeed, this has a breezy high tone floral perfume that invites you into a tea with beautiful depths and roundness. Generous poached summer fruits on the palate. Top notch!

Shared this with a strictly-with-milk tea drinker, and we both loved it. Incredibly robust, a little smoky, some cocoa… I’d say there’s some malt here, too. I loved it black, but it was really outstanding with oat milk.

From Daylon R Thomas a while ago, thanks very much!  Can’t believe only Daylon ever wrote a note for this.  Must have been a quick offering from Whispering Pines and then disappeared.  The dry leaf looks absolutely my jam:  twisty with lots of gold… what I can only describe as a beautiful mess of twisted leaves. :D  It’s quite the golden cup!  Might be a little light for me, but it’s great for a light tea.  Lots of mineral notes.   I think the lingering aftertaste might even be better than while drinking it: like a tomato soup that is mostly cream.   Then maybe some pine sap and BBQ sauce spices.  The second steep is almost FULL buttermilk or cream.  Very odd and unique!  I don’t think I have noticed buttermilk in a tea before?  The leaf looks fierce in appearance, but the flavor is so delicate, I almost wouldn’t guess it was a black tea.  Definitely a tea I might occasionally crave, if I’m not in the mood for a strong cup…
Steep #1 // two teaspoons for a mug // 20 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 //  just boiled // 4 min

Album: Wye Oak – Every Day Like the Last: Collected Singles
Song: Fortune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNBjdcxB9J4

Sipdown 14 – 2024

Mmmmm so tasty. Lilac. Bright green and floral. Sp springy and fresh.

Shocked (okay, not really, all things considered) I haven’t yet written a note on this tea. I shared some with a new friend who primarily drinks bagged blacks with oat milk, and they are head over heels for it. Yesssssss.

This might be my favorite black tea… absolutely top three, I’ll say, in case I’m forgetting two whole teas somehow. I was shocked the first time I tasted it, as the amount of flavor that comes from these leaves is incredible — brown sugar, fig/raisin, a whisper of nuts. Rich, thick mouthfeel with no astringency. Assam has a whole new meaning to me now.

Freebie with my last order – thank you!

Smooth and sweet with rich, warm tones that are light and sparkling. With such a strong fragrance, I can overlook the lack of depth in the mouthfeel. It is a very easy drinker. I feel a soothing mix of cassia and cypress in the throat but without the sharpness of the former. Resteep is good.

There are a lot of Earl Greys out there that schlop bergamot on top of a so-so base, which is likely why it took me so long to warm up to Earl Grey as a genre. Had I tried this one first (hugs to derk), my opinion would be oh, so different! Big, beautiful curly leaves—ashmanra mentioned sweet potato as a flavor profile in her review, and I think that’s spot on; I also get a little fresh wheat bread there, too. Spritz those leaves lightly with fine, fresh bergamot; just enough to scent and garnish it, not soak it in cologne. So good I’m postponing my afternoon housekeeping plans (didn’t take much coaxing) to rock in the glider and sniff the cup.

Tea, cocoa, and goofy chaos with my fifth and sixth graders today. Highlights:

(re: lapsang souchong) Uh, that’s just not natural.
(Joseph was originally from Nazareth, not Bethlehem) Since when?
(An innkeeper is not specifically mentioned in the Luke 2 Christmas story) That must be in one of the newer versions.
(“What in the world are you doing?”) Sanding off my Oreo into the cocoa.
(Out the door) Can I take some of that tea home to my mom?

…after which, a quiet afternoon was welcome, and this little treat from derk added an extra layer of cozy elegance. Some vanilla teas taste like artificial vanilla extract. These are quality long, blond leaves, that have snoodled up under a blankie with real-thing vanilla beans. So nice!

So comfortable. Well rounded and soft. Dreamy.