Whispering Pines Tea Company

A bold black tea that went perfectly with my mood while I was cleaning today and ironically organizing my tea collection at the same time.

The smell is nice and the black tea very hearty – I added a tablespoon, so that was more than enough. Steeped for a little over five minutes. I actually didn’t sense any smoke but I’m used to very smokey teas so I could have missed it. A little sweetness on its own, but I boosted it with a little sugar as I always do. Enjoyed the tea, a feel good blend.

A pleasant cup, although not what I was expecting. I don’t have the most sophisticated taste buds in the first place, but I missed a lot of the notes in the first try of this one. I have some left so I’ll keep trying. What I did get was a very pleasant, malty sort of tea with a rich bready taste. Good and comforting. My leaves weren’t purple, but I love the name and the label.

I recently received my first ever order from Whispering Pines. Since I’m sitting here looking at the ice outside, I thought I’d go ahead and review the tea I’m enjoying at the moment: Silver Needle. I’m tasting the Spring 2016 harvest.

The leaves are thick, fuzzy buds that look like little bananas. They smell like a nice white tea, very delicate with a little sweetness.

I followed the instructions on the package for my first tasting. I thought it was a little overdone, so I reduced the temperature just a little for this tasting.

The taste that stands out for me is “smoky”. It’s not powerful, but it is present enough that it stands out among the other flavors. Definitely more complexity than other Silver Needles or Silver Tips. The aftertaste is less sweet, and lingers for a while.

Overall, a very good white tea. Perfect for a winter afternoon.

I absolutely enjoyed this wonderful tea. Chocolate and vanilla, what’s not to love? It was very smooth without any hint of astringency. There are very slight fruity notes hiding in the background.
I really should have got more than the one ounce I ordered. It’s not too soon to make another order yet right…..

I’m falling behind on reviews again. I finished the last of this tea a couple days ago, compiled my notes, and then just left them sitting. I’m starting to get really bad about that. Anyway, I found this tea to be a rock solid Dian Hong.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 200 F water for 5 seconds. I followed this infusion up with 11 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted mild aromas of wood, leather, and chocolate. After the rinse, I noted that the chocolate aroma intensified and was joined by a subtle scent of caramel. The first infusion produced a similar, though slightly more integrated aroma. In the mouth, I picked up on mild notes of leather, wood, caramel, and chocolate. Subsequent infusions were more robust and complex. I noted an increased woodiness, as well as the emergence of brown sugar, sweet potato, malt, orange blossom honey, and black pepper aromas and flavors. Later infusions were smooth and mild. Malt and minerals provided the dominant aromas and flavors, though lingering impressions of honey, brown sugar, wood, and sweet potato were just barely detectable on the finish.

This was a nice Dian Hong. This being a wildcrafted tea, I was expecting it to be earthier and rougher around the edges, but all in all, this was good. I would have liked to see more spice character and a little more robust flavor overall, but this was still a very respectable tea. I wouldn’t mind purchasing this one again at some point in the future.

This tea tastes like spring. There are happy, bright flowers. There’s honey and citrus. Maybe there are some orange blossoms.

Floral is the main descriptor though.

Good tea, but not my thing. I’m just not a fan of citrus.

Gave my packet a good shake this morning to try to mix up the vanilla. It seems to have worked. This time I am tasting more vanilla with my toast notes. It’s still not as creamy as I remember, but it’s also still better than any tea in my collection. Whispering Pines really is worth the money.

I’m so happy to have this back in my collection. I’ve never reviewed it, but I believe this is my third time buying it. Anyway, the last time I got a notification that it was in stock, it sold out before my lunch break was even up. I emailed Brenden jokingly, saying something like “Did Golden Orchid really sell out in an hour??” Turns out it had sold out in 3 minutes. 3 MINUTES! But Brenden is amazing, y’all. He had the ingredients to make more and made me a custom three ounces. He is the best!

That said, the vanilla in this batch just isn’t what I remember. My memory of this tea is richer and I can’t figure out if my taster is broken, or if maybe I’m doing something wrong. The black tea base is still incredible. Luxurious and toasty. But the vanilla is lacking. Can any of you give me some advice on how you personally prepare it? I went with 3 rounded teaspoons for 24 ounces of water for 3 minutes.

Still giving it a high rating because I have faith. And because I would love this tea without the vanilla anyway.

EDIT: I see somebody saying the vanilla-ness tends to sink to the bottom of the packet. I’ll give mine a good shake tomorrow.

I’ve decided to up my rating on this tea. I’ve been drinking it a lot recently (cold weather always makes me want tea) and I haven’t really been noticing that odd taste when it cools down like I did before. Not sure what happened there.

There are others from Whispering Pines I prefer more (Golden Snail or North Winds), but this is enjoyable in its own right.

I enjoy the tatse fo this when it is hot. No real astringency, seesm smooth, etc.

However, when it cools down, and my tea always ends up going cold before I finish it, it has an odd sort of taste. Kind of like that instant iced tea mix that was popular when I was a kid (can’t remember the name). And that brings up negative associations.

The wet leaf is quite attractive. Kind of reminds me of shredded cedar chips that are wet from the rain. Looks very pretty.

This is the first tea that I’ve tried from this company, it came my way via the GCTTB. This tea smells more like a dark oolong than a black tea to me. It has the dried fruit flavour that reminds me of some of the darker Wuyi oolongs that I’ve tried. There’s some of the dried fruit notes in the flavour as well but overall the dominant flavour is more malty with a slight hint of cocoa.

My Black Friday purchase arrived last night and I was excited to rip into the box this morning. I love chocolate and I was excited to try this tea. Expensive for a Canadian with shipping and everything, but what the heck I’m worth it!
This tea is so good! Smooth and chocolate with slight sweet cherry notes. Mmmmm

This tea is strange! I’m not sure how well the two of us get along. I’m not getting all the different notes that others are getting. In part of the sip the taste seems really flat and then further along it seems really heavy and full. I’m somehow getting a hint of seaweed which doesn’t match any of the descriptions others are experiencing. A little bit of hay on the after taste. Sadly I’m not really feeling this one.

Well it looks like I did it again. I put in a note right after my first time trying this and never made a note again. Its basically been a staple of mine since 2016. If I don’t have this in stock its because I am either waiting for an order to come in or I am waiting for it to get back in stock so I can make a new order.

I would not call this tea sweet. It has a very savory, almost maybe bready taste to me. Don’t have a better description for it. Warm and smooth. It can become astringent, especially if over steeped, but is quite smooth for my usual parameters is boiling water for around 2ish minutes. (I don’t time anything. I just look into the cup to see if the color looks about right.) I don’t notice much in the way of bitterness, but that is one of my blind spots, so no promises.

I can get a good 3 resteeps on the same leaves, though I will start noticing a loss of flavor on the third.

I like this one. Such tiny looking curled up leaves are cute. Exactly what I’m wanting this morning. Warm, smooth, relaxing to sip on after a 2 hour commute to work this morning. Flavor stays good even after its had a chance to cool down (this office is way too cold).

And, of course, its out of stock. Otherwise I’d get more for myself for Christmas.

Ohh, but the Imperial Gold Buds are in stock again. My poor bank account,

Seems like people have waxed poetic about this shou – I see the appeal but I’m maybe too new to shou (shoubie?) to pick up on what’s described as cocoa and mushroom.

I do detect: minerals like river rock, clay, salt

I am not fond of this one. I can’t identify the flavor aspect I don’t like (missing vocabulary again I suspect) but I’m not found of it.

Its not bitter, doesn’t appear to be heavy on tanins, just not my cup of tea. I’ll finish the order, but won’t buy this one again.

I’m upping my rating on this one. I’ve been happily drinking it all day so far and it just hits the spot for this cold wet day.

(Its 20 degrees warmer today than it was all weekend or last week, but the rain just makes it seem colder.)

I don’t think I’ve hit the astringency this time around. Maybe I’ve been drinking fast enough that it hasn’t had time to get cold. Busy day and I haven’t had much time to contemplate the subject.

I like this one. Its got a flavor I have been enjoying, though if it gets too cool a little astringency shows up. I got 3 very good steeps out of the leaves yesterday.

For the most part is a mellow flavor, but I find I don’t really have a good vocabulary to describe it well.

I can see myself putting this into my normal rotation on at least a semi regular basis.

I still have a lot of notes to catch up on. Been drinking Moondance a lot lately and enjoying a variety of different experiences with it. I’ve had a total of three “distinct” sessions with it over the past two weeks. More if you count reusing the same leaves on a later day.

When started, Moondance is so nice and smooth, with a melon fruity flavor accompanied by light malt. Sometimes it is sweet enough that it truly tastes like sugar or honey has been mixed in, and that sweetness lingers in the back of the throat. It tends to be accompanied by complementary hay notes at this point, and really has a good amount of depth.

After being left to oxidize the flavor ends up transforming in a number of ways. This last session, I revisited the leaves a few times over a few days, and today the resulting brew was very reminiscent of an Assam black.

Been drinking quite a bit of white this week, mostly by way of endlessly using the same leaves. No complaints, though. I love white tea.

The leaves of this one are beautiful and they smell lightly vegetal dry, sweet and hay-like wet. Followed the recommendations and did this one western style, which resulted in a sweet-smelling, light-colored liquor.

Texture is smooth, thick and viscous, the flavor light and sweet in the first steep and just a bit bolder in the second steep. Enjoyable and easy to drink, and I definitely want to try this one gongfu style next.

The more I experience Chinese black teas, the more I’m learning to appreciate black teas in general.

Steeped this one in a gravity steeper with boiling water for about 3 minutes. The result was a nice, red liquor with a deep, bready, chocolatey aroma. Each sip has a smooth texture with the taste of cocoa and bready notes, and a creamy, malty aftertaste lingers for quite a while.

I forgot about the tea during the resteep and let it go for a good 10 minutes, but I still got very nice flavor out of it without any unpleasant flavors. Definitely enjoyed this hong, seemingly more than rhinkle, funny enough!