Whispering Pines Tea Company

Thanks to Mz P. for sending some of this my way!

I can see why people like this tea… it smells very chocolate-y in the bag and when you steep it up it’s so nice and rich. It definitely tastes like chocolate too! Is it a flavored tea or is it natural? I see it has vanilla in it which would explain the almost creamy quality it has. Anyway I’m glad I got to try this one! It’s good with soymilk and it’s also good plain.

This is my #1 favorite tea, hands down. I’ve already had it many times Western style, but I thought I needed to experience it gongfu style too. Let me tell you, that experience deserves its own review too! Here’s how I brewed: 3g at 205F H2O for 15/15/30/40/60 sec

steep 1: This steep is all bread and chocolate with a honey sweet finish. Chocolate croissant, anyone?

steep 2: The chocolate hides for this steep, but caramel comes out to play and brings its friend butter, all over the bready base. Mmmm so buttery and smooth!

steep 3: This was a repeat of steep 2. I’m not mad about that at all.

steep 4: This steep is where it’s at. OMG. Dying. Caramel + dark chocolate + honey. So sweet and so smooth

steep 5: And we finish up with buttery, scrumptious bread. Steep four was my favorite, but this is actually a really nice way to finish the session!

Everyone, do yourself a favor and get your hands on some Ailaoshan Black. You’ll be in total tea love too :)

I got my Whispering Pines samples early! I checked the tracking this morning when I got up and was so excited that I rushed to the mailbox in my more-than-slightly sheer tank and some shorts that I slept in….oops. I seriously did not even think about it until I was almost there but luckily, I don’t think I was spotted. I love the packaging and the handwritten note, btw. That totally made me smile :-).

Anyway. THIS TEA. Let me tell you about how great it is. At first sip, a really nice salty caramel note hits that morphs quickly into chocolate all over a very malty, bready background that reminds me of a croissant. The sip ends with a burst of sweet fruitiness. Sorry I can’t be more specific about the fruit, but I don’t have magical Tea Fairy taste buds that can detect that level of nuance. The flavor then fades away to a really clean mouthfeel that I’ve mentioned in a couple of my tasting notes. I also feel like that’s not a helpful descriptor but I’ve thought about it a lot and that’s all I can come up with. I am a HUGE fan of that in a tea though.

From the unflavored TTB
I brewed this Western style, so as to leave a little for the next person in the list. The aroma was spicy with hints of grass. The taste is full of spice, with grass/straw highlights. Taste is fairly big, but the finish is just huge: very rich and powerful and goes on forever. This is my favorite style of oolong: a nice balance between green and black, with the best features of each.

From the unflavored TTB.
I used less tea than I normally do per the instructions in the TTB. I didn’t need more than 1 gram. Powerful nose is a blend of autumn leaves, chocolate, and smoke. The taste is similar. This is a very good tea, but I think I prefer the Yunnan stlye that is heavier on the chocolate. The finish is almost ethereal: the blend of the flavors changes subtly and it fades very slowly. Others’ tasting notes mention caramel, and the flavor now seems obvious to me, but I don’t see the honey, raisins, etc.

Although this isn’t my favorite flavor mix, the tea was so well made and interesting that it still rates a very high score.

Oolong rocks my world. Especially TGY. But I’m critical when it comes to it cause I have tried many and lots of them just taste generic to me. Not bad, but nothing overly special. Since I now have a well garnished selection of my favourites that I keep at all time, I don’t seek them as much as I used to, I’m pretty satisfied with what I have.

When I read that Whispering Pines were roasting their own TGI, it got me really curious to try the first batch.

I’m having it in the gaiwan.

This is not heavily roasted, but just enough to bring out those sweet caramel notes.
And boy, are they present. I get dark caramel, sweet corn and light mineral notes. At the first steep, the wet leaves smell like slightly burnt kernels and roasted coffee.

Another thing that really got me to try it was the “caramelized bananas” mentioned in the description. I mean come on. Pretty hard to resist that one.

And you know what? Don’t underestimate the power of suggestion cause it really worked, I definitely got that, but wouldn’t have come up with it on my own!

It looses some of its “roastiness” at the fourth steep, that’s when peachy fruity notes and a nice floral mouthfeel emerge. As it cools, I get a light camphor minty finish, and it really lingers.

Me like.

All I’m really saying is this TGY lot no. 1 is wicked good. More please.

Additional notes: THANKS SO MUCH for sending me over a few samples of these Whispering Pines teas, Kawaii433! I truly appreciate you sharing them. Most of them I haven’t been able to try and if I did, it was ages ago, or the samples were of questionable age. (Has Whispering Pines really been around for ages? At least AN age.) So it is great to revisit some of these teas, even if I had the honor of trying them before. I rated this tea 99 five years ago and that is an elite group. Unfortunately, this new harvest isn’t wowing me…at all. It’s not a matter of being tea spoiled because I can generally appreciate a tea about as much as I appreciated a tea before… even if the tea I have around is on the older side. But this isn’t old tea anyway. I wanted to savor these two teaspoons of leaves, so used one teaspoon for this steep session without filling the mug all the way (this should have resulted in a similar leaf to water ratio that is mentioned in the description). Sadly the flavor is not as chocolate or vanilla as I remember. I didn’t see any vanilla beans in this sample, even though I remember quite a few from the harvest of five years ago. The brew simply isn’t deep enough to remotely resemble chocolate. The flavor is very light. Too light for me to even describe… it’s like the faintest flavor of Fujian black tea. But PLEASE don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself. Maybe with the parameters you use, it will be the same lovely tea once again. I tried this tea years ago and of course harvests can’t be exactly the same. It’s a shame though. If I lowered ratings, this tea would now receive a 72. :/
Steep #1 // 1 teaspoon for not quite full mug // 10 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 8 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 4 min

Additional notes: This avalanche of snow means a special sipdown of a special tea. This one! I’m sad to let this one go, but hopefully it will be with me again in the future. I’ll be sipping three large mugs of this all day. I’m reading China Mieville’s ‘Last Days of New Paris’ and it is crazy weird amazing. It might make other books boring for me. Uh oh. I’ve been sipping down tons of teas lately! Probably because I know my Dammann Freres order will be arriving (thanks to Zennenn and everyone who was so kind to split teas!) and I’m also planning an Angry Tea Room black friday order… mainly because they were kind enough to send over samples AND their teas are irresistible. But that will be it for me for a while… even though I’m itching to order from a few other places. :D

Edited to add: Oh gosh, I just saw my other tasting note for this tea and it also uses the word “avalanche” but under the context of my vast number of tasting notes. I like tasting notes better than snow. :D

I’m sure everyone enjoyed the break from my avalanche of tasting notes while I had the Butiki traveling teabox. haha. This was certainly the first tea I wanted to try once the teabox was traveling again. MzPriss sent me a few things even though I’m eagerly awaiting her teabox that seems like it only has the best teas!

THIS tea is the highest rated on Steepster and well deserved. It’s better than I expected, and I expected greatness. I haven’t given a tea a 99 rating in a while. I used 2 1/2 teaspoons. I was able to get three really nice steeps by waiting for the first cup after boiling a few minutes, the second a couple minutes, the third just boiled. This is exactly my sort of tea. Just look at those flavor notes. I had to check the ingredients list to make sure there actually wasn’t chocolate of any kind. There isn’t. I realize that this is a Yunnan Dian Hong blended with a Fujian, but this is the kind of flavor I look for whenever I try Verdant’s Laoshan. I’ve only tried steeping one teaspoon of the Laoshan though – maybe I should try 2 1/2 teaspoons at least once. This actually tastes like melted chocolate though. With some crunchy vanilla beans. I can see how WP compares this to cherry, but I wished there would have been more of that flavor. The third steep was still very good, but it seemed more like sweet potato than chocolate. Absolutely none of that cedary oversteeped flavor. This blend is absolutely amazing and I would love to try everything that WP ever blends!

For some reason I was really really craving a chocolate tea today. Don’t even know why, but I really was. This one totally hit the spot!
It’s not often that I crave chocolate-y teas, which is why I don’t have tons of them in my collection. I honestly kinda just feel the need to have this chocolate-y tea in my collection and no other one. Plus! This one doesn’t taste like wood! Keep thinking that maybe it will start tasting like wood randomly since apparently my taste buds love ruining everything, but they’ve not betrayed GO yet, so that’s good! XD

Was gonna try Snickerdoodle next…but the maple tea really did disappoint me today. And since everyone seems to be drinking this lately I decided this was an appropriate time to jump back on the GO Wagon.
I always forget how good this one is! Not getting a single note of disappointment from this tea! ^^

Mmm haven’t had this tea in a while….
Still delicious! ^^

Oh my word!! FINALLY trying this tea! Super stoked.
I’ll write a better note later when I’m not in tons of pain. Definitely tasting the chocolate and malt. Not noticing tons of vanilla actually, but I’m pretty sure that’s just because my pain is really distracting me today. I really love this tea though. I’m so so happy I finally got to try it! Whispering Pines really is awesome! :D I can’t wait to try more teas from them. Will definitely have to put in a bigger order later in the year.
I totally understand the hype now!! ^^

I kept this from the herbal tea box, because I thought it might be useful someday. I don’t feel sick, I just feel sinus-y from all of the rain and yuck. When I smelled this in the pouch, it was so super strong, like a cough drop in tea form. I thought I would be drinking a “necessary evil” type thing. But I actually really like it. I think it’s the ginger. So if it helps unstuff me, great. I am enjoying it either way.

In other news, I am watching Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary. All of his stuff is disappearing from Netflix after June so I am racing the calendar. It is sort of driving me crazy though, there are a lot of celebrity voice overs, and I swear this guy’s voice is one of them http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001137/?ref_=tt_cl_t6 (his voice is distinctive) but he isn’t on the list.

We do buy this one a lot but drink it not so much like Lance said in his review, Surely one of my fav Yunnan Blacks. I’m drinking it right now with a little Fujian Black added not because it needs anything added to it but just because I like mixing the two sometimes.
To me it has notes of malt, chocolate, honey, earth and more.
We have had lots of these type teas some good some bad some maybe even better than this one but prolly not one as beautiful as this one because it IS prolly the prettiest yunnan golds we’ve had.
I like everything about this yunnan gold tea and I drink what I like so this is the one I’d rather drink. Also lance loves it so that is a plus too, I couldn’t get him to drink much teas with me before WP.
If ya like this one and the Fujian wont you make yourself a cup with both 50/50, You may love it!

Pretty good over ice on a nice spring day :)

The Sleeping Bear while at the dialysis clinic again, its lonely here today, just myself and the sleeping bear and the color purple on tv, I think i’ll turn off the tv and read a book :)
I really enjoy this sleeping bear, the jasmine sweet pine goodness is great this morning.

Sleeping Bear is Great!! Piney sweet Jasmine goodness!!
I’m sitting in the dialysis waiting room waiting for Lance sipping on it this morning and there is this one guy here that talks to me sometimes specially when i bring tea, He is from Korea and it’s hard for me to understand his speaking sometimes he is a really sweet guy but he HATES China and all things Chinese lol, I’m not sure whats going on between China and Korea, he tries to tell me but i just can’t understand most of what he says :)
Most of my teas are Chinese and when I drink them up here he always tells me how bad china is and all this rah rah rah blah, i just smile and nod cuz i don’t know what to say lol.
I lied to him about the Sleeping Bear I tell him it is Japanese and he is happy and I don’t have to hear all the rah rah blah blah lol. I love my Chinese teas!!

Sipping on this Ailaoshan Black this evening, I had made some cookies to enjoy with it But things didn’t work out as planned. The cookies were way too sweet and even with this unsweet tea with them to balance things out they were still just OMG too sweet for me, had they not been so sweet I think they would have paired up well, maybe just plain sugar or shortbread cookies next time. The Tea is Awesome as always, I still love WP teas, I haven’t had a WP fix in a while, WP was/is one of our favorite places to order from, I miss it so much.

I wish I had the fairy powers (and the money), to travel all around and drop a sample of this marvel of tea in each of your mailboxes, Steepster friends…

For real…

Sweet goodness coming from what seems to be a Vanilla Tee Tree.

It’s just blissful in my newly seasoned VANILLA DREAMS yixing clay pot.

Upping the rating, it’s just perfection!

(See previous note for more details)

So…Steepster people. MzPriss and I have been chosen to preview this new creation before its official debut. Yesterday, I received the precious sample and drank it right away.

Beware, I have a lot to say, sorry for the long review, just couldn’t make it a short one!

I will not pretend I have the English skills to describe this tea the way Brenden did so masterfully in his own beautiful “Tolkien-esque” way…

But after reading it, I can tell you that I get what this brand new concoction is all about.

See, I live in a mountainous forestial environment.

Some days, I feel like Alice in Wonderland.

I get inspired by my forest every day….walking by a tall and majestic oak tree, bouncing on spongy velvety mossy grounds, getting intoxicated by the pungent and resinous scent of evergreens, listening to the chant of dazzling birds, secretly meeting with wonderful critters, having mystic encounters with strange and never seen before mushrooms, floating my way through ponds and wetlands, following the curves of sinuous rivers…

Beautiful nature canvases, begging for respect and attention. To experience it all, it is only required to look, smell and listen.

That will be my approach with this tea…

The look:

Stunning. Dark ebony curls and golden ribbons, they intertwine like enamoured lovers. Tea can be such a beautiful thing…Here’s a pic:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/14514171475/lightbox/

The smell:

Enticing. But not as overly vanilla as I expected. It took me a while to figure out what the dry scent reminded me of…I finally did put my finger on it. I have a Vietnamese Lotus scented tea, and I compared it. Lotus blossoms! In tea, they have a natural floral vanilla scent to them. It’sa very distinctive fragrance, a little earthy and mossy.

Once brewed, the aroma took over the kitchen. Pics right here…but sorry, no 3D olfactory effects!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/14534509223/lightbox/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/14491254566/lightbox/

The listen:

That’s the tasting part. This tea embodies someone’s love and respect for his surroundings. That “speaks” to me so I tried to be attentive to fully grasp all its subtleties. To tell you the truth, all I felt like doing when I drank it was to close my eyes, relax and enjoy instead of taking notes…and that’s totally what I did, at least for the first steep. (Lazy reviewer!!)

I initially thought this was going to be Golden Orchid on steroids!!! But it’s quite the opposite. It’s more subdued. In fact, it doesn’t even seem like any vanilla was added to the blend. It feels as if the leaves came from a mysterious and unknown vanilla tea tree variety, an old tree that would have been watered with vanilla scented water for centuries. That’s how natural this is, Camellia Sinensis in all its glory!

I am biased and partial. I already love the two base teas creating this little marvel: Ailaoshan Black and Imperial Grade Dian Hong . How could I NOT like this?

The union of the two create some amazing notes. The first steep was like liquid silk in my mouth, all vanilla and smooth salted caramel. I also got that lotus note.

The other steeps brought more complexity. The mix of the two black teas produced some kind of chocolaty dried cherry notes, so yum. I didn’t get Morels per say as in the description (my favourite mushroom BTW) but a damp yeasty earthiness might be my own perception on the “mushroom” notes. I also got woody and piney notes in the later steeps.

This tea is very potent, I was skeptical that it could yield as many brews as Brenden suggested. But I respected the Master’s instructions and it worked. 5 good steeps and not one weak cup! Well actually, that’s not true. It did get a little weak the first time around. But the sample was big enough for me to have it twice. The second time around, I used less water and it worked better for me. So when I get this baby home, I’ll be using 1 tbsp per cup instead of the recommended 1/2 tbsp. having said that, do try it the way it is meant to be, I’m a heavy steeper :-)

In conclusion, believe the hype people, Brenden is the Tea Whiz of the Woods!

Thank you so much for the wonderful opportunity to try this new beloved blend of yours :-)

As I suspected, this is a great middle(ish) of the night tea. I’ve been enjoying this propped up with in bed with the dogs snuggled up and a book. This time, I’m definitely getting the cherries I didn’t taste before – they are more subtle, but they are there. I keep thinking the same thing I did when I first sampled it – this is just so lovely.

It is no secret that I’m an enthusiastic fangirl for Whispering Pines teas. I was very gratified (and in excellent company with the lovely TheTeaFairy) to be one of the first tasters of the new WPTC blend Elderwood. When Brenden sent a list of the ingredients along with the sample, I was already salivating before I even tasted it. A blend of Imperial Grade Dian Hong, Ailaoshan Black and hand-cut Tahaitian Vanilla Beans sounded to me like my very much beloved Golden Orchid turned up to 11.

Only it’s not the big bold vanilla-fudge bomb I was expecting. This tea is a lady. An elegant lady dripping with class and good taste. This is a whole different experience from Golden Orchid – more subtle and nuanced. The word that comes to mind for me is pretty – though lovely is a far better word. Have you ever seen Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday? She’s so bright and beautiful and adorable, a pixie who is also a princess.

The dry leaf is gorgeous with sparks of gold. This is like nectar – not just merely sweet, but complex and nuanced with an earthy bass note. There is a hint of malt and bit of chocolate, with a luscious creamy vanilla winding it’s way through it and a fruity undertone. There is a bit of a floral lingering taste toward the end from the vanilla and absolutely zero astringency. This lady is smooth and sublimely elegant. If Cate Blanchett showed up at my house wearing her Oscar gown, this is the tea I would serve her.

Elderwood has lots to give. I took it though 4 steeps and the put the leaves in a cold steep overnight and woke up to a silky little honey taste. I really loved the third steep (though the first was my favorite), by that time it was really down to basiscs – earthy cocoa and a little jammy fruit. I had extremely high expectations for this and it did not disappoint – it’s enchanting.

I want to thank Brenden for letting me do this preview!

The song for this? Well this lady is a classic, so Beethoven I think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkcvrxj0eLY

A forest is more than a grove of trees. A forest is the wind sweeping across the pines, the wood thrush calling, and the blankets of mist covering the mossy earth below your feet. A forest is the sweet vanilla scent of spring wildflowers and the babbling brook feeding the blackberry bushes. A forest is the morel mushroom hiding under the wintered oak leaves. A forest is everything that we should strive to be — strong, wise, and tranquil. Elder forests are filled with complex ecosystems. Every corner of the woods presents a new biological wonderland, and every inch of the void between organisms plays a vital role in the full picture.

At Whispering Pines, we appreciate complexity. There are, of course, great things to be said about intense singular notes and the boldness of strong lingering aftertastes. However, in the ancient forests crawling with the fingers of fog and ethereal thrush melodies, it is not the plentiful pine we seek. We enter the deepest realms of the forest in search of diversity and the beauty that lies behind the entrance to the trail. A book is not a book without the words within, and a venture into the unknown is not complete without every aspect present.

This is why we chose to seek the complexity of the highest grade Chinese black teas available as the base for Elderwood. This is why we sought the most complex and balanced Tahitian vanilla bean we could find. For the sake the the primeval forests and the immense biodiversity within, we could not choose to cut corners on complexity.

Inspired by the deepest and most ancient of forests, Elderwood carries base notes of warm pine, oak, and cocoa, with sweet vanilla, caramel, cherry, and morel perfectly balanced in the background. A sweet and earthy moss-like aftertaste with hints of vanilla and oak linger for hours past the last sip of this strikingly smooth brew. The aroma is pine, cocoa, and stone fruit, and the color of the tea is dark amber with a slight tinge of deep purple.

The overall experience of this tea is only comparable to what you can imagine drinking the finest hot cocoa infused gently with cherry, and aged in oak barrels beneath the forest floor would be like. The richness and depth of Elderwood can truly only be done justice by experiencing the masterpiece yourself. We highly recommend enjoying Elderwood outdoors. Allow the brew to warm you on a chilly day while walking along your favorite woodland trail.

In honor of all beauty that mother nature has provided us with, and in honor of those moments where you realize just how big the full picture is, I give you Elderwood.

Notes: Warm Pine, Oak, Melted Chocolate, Vanilla, Chocolate-Covered Cherries, Plum, Cream, Salted Caramel, Morel, Moss

Ingredients: Imperial Grade Dian Hong, Ailaoshan Black Tea, Hand-cut Tahitian Vanilla Beans

http://whisperingpinestea.com/elderwood.html