Whispering Pines Tea Company

First!

This is a beautiful new photogenic cake from whispering pines. I haven’t drank from a 100g cake in awhile, so it seems so cute to me and bite sized. The leaves are long and several shades of pale yellow, green, and silver; in which, they are threaded in a mass of puerh goodness. The cake has a very faint aroma of soft grasses and some light florals, but it is hard to tell. The cake is a bit tight in compression, but I managed to jimmy off a section. I warmed my pot up and placed the fox inside. The tea opens into a sweet grassy and wet wood aroma. I can hint at what I call opaque tones (they are cloudy, somewhat milky, its hard to describe…) I washed the leaves once and began my brewing. The brew is incredibly light and subtle, but it has a decent thickness. The drink has the consistency of milk along with tastes of beans, grass, chrysanthemum, and a bit viscosity. The brew hits the tongue with smoothness and softness, but it retracts and bites with a brief tannic bitter. The session continues in this manner. This is a very clean and “springy” tea. The cup never colors darker than pale jade, and the tones never leave the grass and high floral notes of the spectrum. This what I imagine early spring tastes like. I liked the cake, but I am going to be keeping it in storage for bit. This is a fair cake at the price.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRbQfqXg2Yr/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel&hl=en
its a multipic, so you gota scroll for more.

Let me begin this review by saying that sometimes I forget what I have in my tea cabinets and storage totes. Literally, I sometimes buy something, put it aside, and then forget about it. I got so wrapped up in finishing off some of the aged oolong samples I had lying around that I totally forgot about this black tea. What’s worse is that I started working my way through this one a couple weeks ago, took a few preliminary notes, and then shoved it far in the back of one of the tea cabinets. I rediscovered it a couple days ago, tested it to make sure it was still viable, and made a point of taking the time to finish it before moving on to something else.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 205 F water for 5 seconds. I followed this infusion up with 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 8 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and 7 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves gave off mild aromas of camphor, chocolate, and sweet potato. After the rinse, the camphor, chocolate, and sweet potato aromas intensified and were joined by scents of malt, toast, and wood. The first infusion produced a similar, though more balanced bouquet. In the mouth, I mostly picked up mild notes of toast, malt, wood, and sweet potato underscored by subtle notes of chocolate, cream, and camphor. Subsequent infusions were more intense and robust, offering stronger impressions of chocolate, malt, cream, wood, camphor, toast, and sweet potato. Impressions of molasses, baked bread, butter, wildflower honey, and orange emerged at this point. A subtle minerality also began to make its mark on the finish. Later infusions were dominated by impressions of minerals, toast, baked bread, and wood, though fleeting impressions of orange, chocolate, sweet potato, wildflower honey, and camphor lingered in the background.

This was a super nice, supremely easy-drinking black tea. I loved how refined the aromas and flavors were, and I thought the smoothness of the body was extremely appealing. This was definitely one of the better black teas I have tried in recent months. I would recommend it highly to anyone looking for a sophisticated Chinese black tea.

Found Whispering Pines Teas from a steepster member while I was looking for a quality tea to purchase. I decided on Jabberwocky. When it arrived I was so impressed with both Jabberwocky and Blackbear teas that I purchased two more teas. The second order I purchased the Taiwanese Wild Mountain Black tea. Was I glad I did. This tea blew me away with the first taste. A sweet tea without sweetener of any kind? A surprise indeed. Yes, Jabberwocky is an excellent tea and Blackbear has a wonderful smoky taste, but I think the Wild Mountain Black is my favorite from Whispering Pines. Just ordered more today.

OK, so I keep trying Taiwan teas, and I just can’t seem to get into that style. I can appreciate this one but I can’t say that I like it. The wintergreen flavor just didn’t seem to go well with the other flavors for me.
Nose; Wintergreen — lots of wintergreen, sweet potato, honey, oat straw
Palate; Wintergreen and lots of it, slight sweet potato, oat straw tea, blueberry, honey, somewhat bitter and tannic.

Well, I think this is my favorite black tea….it is amazingly complex, but very subtle, so one has to give it time and attention to really get everything from it. That said it is also a nice sipping tea if you don’t want to think that much about it. VEry much like a Wuyi yancha in character.
Nose; honey, sweet florals — violets, clover, cocoa, sandalwood ( very light ), vanilla, mushrooms, leaf mould, forest after a rain — ozone.
Palate; Very interesting , slightly full mouth and throat but not as much as say a Dian Hong, clover, alfalfa hay, vanilla, oak moss, mushroom, sassifrass, honey, ginseng, huckleberry, and a somewhat mineral character.
Yeah all of that is there and probably more!

A shou for coffee drinkers, I found this one to be pretty bitter a few short steeps in and pleasantly bitter. After 4-5 steepings the bitterness gives way to a very deeply creamy, almost chocolate richness that is very satisfying. This one can go the distance.

I received this as a sample from Whispering Pines and loved the tea. Sad to say it is not available or I would have definitely bought more of this tea. Loved the malty rich flavor caramel flavor.

GCTTB

I pulled this one from the box to try out, since i’d like to get through some of the samples quickly so VariaTEA can come pick up the box whenever. I wasn’t sure what to expect since i didn’t bother looking anything up prior to drinking it. This is rather pleasant…feels like maple..and then sort of turns in to a lovely mild black tea. Ineresting tea nonetheless. glad i got to try it.

Thank you steepster for introducing me great tastes of my favorite drink, tea. In my culture our people drink the black tea from the black sea region of Turkey. In the markets I see many different brands and tastes of the other wonderful tea kinds. This is good because I taste every single kind , getting the taste in its best form.

One of my favourite teas currently.

Very strong taste that is consistent for the entire steeping session.

I did a 5 second wash with ~3.5g, 90ml at 205F

This steeps extremely quick when it’s prepared enough. A proper wash lets it hydrate and open up. First steep takes a little longer, about 10 seconds for a proper cup, but the next 5-10 steeps after that can be done in as little as 5 seconds.

I recommend leaving a seed inbetween each steep session. Just a little bit of water left in the gaiwan (or whatever tea receptacle you prefer) that will absorb a healthy amount of tea. The seed will mix with the fresh water for each steep, which gives you a very quick but very rich taste. The seed will not affect longevity of the tea, so you don’t have to worry about having less infusions out of it. But on the plus side, each cup of tea will be incredibly rich and strong which is A+ in my book.

Flavours are pretty similar to what’s posted in the profile above. Cacao, cocoa, creamy (extremely creamy. This tea feels like it coats your very being in warmness and smoothness), roasted nuts, brandy, a tiny bit earthy. A hidden hint of cherry if you brew it strong (when it goes to dark dark red in color).

Smelled amazing, but the taste was just a bit off!

Presentation: The packaging was was very nice, sealed foiled bag with nicely written label. Brenden always leaves a nice note to his customers thanking them for their business. The leaves are a lovely golden color, many of the trichomes still cover the leaves.
Scent: Sweet, and Malty.
Flavor: The flavor was smooth, sweet and malty. It carried notes of caramel and was quite flavorful. It is very similar to Whispering Pines Golden Snail black tea that they offer.
Brew Method: Western: I weighed out 0.33g/oz of tea leaves with the brewing temperature set at 205F. I did two brews of this tea one for 3 minutes and the next for 5 minutes. My only concern was that the instructions on the packaging said to brew them at 212F, when in the past other golden bud black teas from Whispering pines would instruct 205F. The tea is great and I would recommend it for a tea lover’s cupboard.

I’m finishing up the last of this today and am more than a little sad about it. The base for this tea is incredibly rich and full and really makes this the best Earl Grey I’ve tried to date. The bergamot is not overpowering but it’s there; neither is the tea itself so bold that it overwhelms the aroma and flavor of the bergamot oil. Truly one of my favorite cups lately.

Second Steep
8 ounces water + 195 degrees + 22 minutes

Oooo, yum, yes for chocolatey puerh. Steeped this multiple times throughout the day and it was very delicious. Occasionally, the fishy notes of the shou peeked through. The vanilla for me though was absent.

On my first try, I did not like this. It was toasty, the flavor seemed strong, and I wasn’t a fan. Disheartening as it would have been my second oolong to try, neither of which I liked.

And then, about a week later I tried it again. And all of a sudden I really liked it. It still has a toasty flavor. All I can think is that I was not in the mood for it on the first attempt. (I am extremely mood driven when it comes to flavor.)

I have since been trying to ration myself, draw out that single ounce as long as possible as the price makes me feel a bit guilty. not too much however. My husband had an addiction to hard drives (very very long story) and so far my tea doesn’t even approach his cost. :)

Anyway definitely staple quality. And the first non black to be labeled so. :)

It seems the rating system won’t allow me to use fractions or decimals. I actually use about 1/2 teaspoon to around 8oz of water. Those leaves are rolled up really tight and expand hugely while steeping.