Whispering Pines Tea Company

Oversteeped it just a touch, but I think this is a lovely tea nonetheless. Rich, a tiny bit sweet, some smoke that isn’t lapsang souchong -y, more like smoked salmon or something along those lines. Smoked chestnuts? There’s a lot of complex layers to this one, and I’m loving all of them in different ways.

This is really good tea. It had a lot of fermentation flavor in the early steeps. It had a delicious thick tea soup early on, I think that you would use the word creamy. It was slightly bitter in the first two steeps but this did not linger. It was naturally sweet in nature and lasted quite well. I steeped it ten times with only a seven gram sample in a 125ml gaiwan so ten steeps is impressive considering that I’m sure I could get two more steeps out of the sample. I usually use 10g in this gaiwan but I like the way this gaiwan pours so the 125ml it was. I will definitely want to purchase at least one or more of these cakes. I think this might be worth a tong purchase.

I steeped this tea ten times in a 125ml gaiwan with 7g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 1 min, and 2 min.

Whispering Pines just put out a limited batch of this new tea, and it’s already out of stock! I absolutely love his puerh and the last puerh blend he did with mushrooms, Mirkwood, was one of my faves! So, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one!

This puerh is flavored with cocoa and black cardamom. I’m not sure I’ve ever had black cardamom, although green is common in chai. I looked it up and Wikipedia said it has a smoky character, like camphor. Okay, that could definitely go well with puerh, since puerh can have camphor notes too.

I brewed it up western after shaking the bag vigorously, as recommended. It brewed up very dark. :) Verdict? I love it! It’s like drinking a dark chocolate bar that has cardamom in it. Thick, rich, and flavorful! Mmmm! I also steeped it a second time and it was almost as good as the first steeping. So good!

TheTeaFairy told me that it tasted like peppermint patties to her, and I can definitely see that. The black cardamom has a character that can be taken as minty…probably the camphor note.

Needless to say, I put myself on the notification list for when it’s back in stock. ;)

I had this tea this morning in anticipation of another whispering pines order and it was more fabulous than I remember. It was both sweet and savory, complex, and just plain delectable. Maybe I just had the perfect amount of leaf this time (5g). I dunno! All I know is that it was great!

A smooth and flavorful black tea that needs no additives. Somewhat weaker than my normal morning cup, but rich and delicious.

Green teas were my first loves in the tea world. I drank nothing but green tea for years before exploring other types. Needless to say, i am very picky about my green teas. I drink only the best ones!

This particular green is pretty good. It starts out with a familiar high mountain green taste and finishes with a unique, but pleasant, nutty flavor – almost reminiscent of a dragonwell tea.

This was an amazingly pleasant surprise from a tea friend. I am in love with this company, and I love it when one of their products ends up in my tea room. I opened the package to take a whiff. The dry leaf carries a subtle smoky aroma. The package contained small black curls speckled with golden tendrils. I placed these treats in my warmed gaiwan and gave them a shake. The warmed leaf scent heightened to a black currant and a deep smoky undertone. I brewed up a cup and took in this aroma. The liquor was deep crimson ruby and smelled of caramel, malt, and slight dark chocolate. The initial sip was amazing and robust. The brew tasted of salted caramel, baked bread, and a hearty malt. This brew kept consistently bold and the flavors remained distinguished throughout multiple steepings. The tea became sweeter with a buckwheat honey undertone and blackberry flavor. This was yet another amazing brew from this company, and it suited well for an early morning tea session.

https://instagram.com/p/3JvcYyTGTb/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

As per Brenden’s recommendation, I mixed up the contents of the bag to make sure nothing was settled on the bottom. The result was a stronger vanilla aroma in the brewed cup. But the vanilla still seems to get lost in the flavor. I think what is coming across as a much deeper and creamier chocolate note (relative to straight North Winds) is resultant from the vanilla. It’s like like chocolate ice cream, :p But I probably wouldn’t have known to credit vanilla if I didn’t know it was there in the first place ;) Sneaky vanilla!

I haven’t ordered from Whispering Pines in a while, and all my favorites were out of stock :( so I had to try something new. This tea smells divine in the bag. Strong vanilla and chocolate. But when I brewed it, most of those notes were lost somewhere in the process. I was left with a cup that tasted very much like North Winds. I didn’t pay attention at the time that this tea is, indeed, made with North Winds. But that’s OK, since I LOVE the North Winds black tea. Although I’m not sure if the version I tried last is same as current version. At any rate, this tea is good, but I was disappointed in translation of dry leaf to cup. I think Ill have to change the brewing parameters next time and see if I can’t bring out more flavor. Also, sometimes my taste buds have an off day and don’t notice the obvious. I’ll be returning to this tea soon for re-evaluation.

It was cool enough this morning to enjoy a cup of tea and I picked this one. I don’t have too much left!! Yikes. This remains one of my favorite black teas. Strong enough for breakfast, but not bitter or overpowering. I think this one will stay in my cupboard all the time.

It has been almost 6 weeks since surgery and I’m still not breathing well or smelling anything . Of course I’m disappointed but I’m not any worse off than I was before surgery. Except for my finances. Surgery was about $9,000, of which I am responsible for $1722. Too bad you don’t get a refund if it doesn’t work. I see the ENT on June 1 for my final post-op appointment. I’m harboring a teensy sliver of hope that I will be able to breathe and smell, but it’s not very likely. I need to remind myself that there are worse things than not being able to smell the cat’s litterbox.

OMG This is Yummy!!
First steep
Very nice, rich and thick tasting with an awesome mouthfeel so velvety smooth and a lingering sweet aftertaste. I get some slight pecan notes and cocoa and slight camphor.
Second steep
Mmmmmm, same notes as steep one but much more intense and this time with a nice unusual earthy note, different than other puerhs, a kinda woodsy earthy note, the aftertaste pretty strong.
Steep 3
I can’t really describe this steep, It’s so nice and warm, like a hug on the tongue.
Steep 4
I wonder these different colored fish food flakes taste different to my fish, he seems to really like the reddish ones or maybe he can just see them better in the water, I dunno.
I’m kinda sweating a bit, whew, I think i’m feeling the Qi now :)
Steep 5
That moment when you are in the NOW,everything else just kinda stops and melts away leaving you there with no worries, no pain, no thoughts really, no thoughts of the future or the past, Just the NOW. Just staring off in bliss sipping your tea with no other concerns. A perfect Tea!

Really looking forward to next spring already so I can get a few cakes of this one :)

Shame on me. I’ve had this tea for a while and hadn’t tried it yet. This may just be the best herbal tea I have ever had. Sweet Cinnamon Pastry Treat. The bf and I devoured this one. So very good. I don’t see this one lasting long. We drank this while we watched Annabelle. It comforted me while I was scaring myself silly.

http://www.cuppageek.com/index.php/2015/05/21/tea-of-the-day-elder-grove-from-whispering-pines-tea-co/

Today was a fun day, I hung out with one of my good friends (who in a few months will be a house mate with Ben and me) while enjoying a beautiful day. It was extra auspicious when at a thrift store I found a new tea-set, it is a kyusu with three matching cups which I am officially deeming our tea-set for when we hang out and all three have the same tea. After depositing said friend back at his domicile, Ben and I decided to lounge in bed with a giant pile of lasagna and watch All That and Gargantua 2, because we are nerds.

It has been a while since I took a look at a Shou Puerh, which is tragic, lately I have been on a Sheng kick since it evokes spring to me, and Shou evokes late summer and fall, and it comforts me during the cold months. But, it also reminds me of lush northern forests, which I am feeling the strong need for frolicking in, so with that I give you Whispering Pines Tea Co’s 2012 Huron Gold Needle Shou Pu-erh! From 2012, grown in Xishuangbanna and stored in a fancy temperature and humidity controlled vault by everyone’s favorite Tea Hobbit at WPT. The aroma of the rather pretty golden Puerh is something else, one of those reasons we need scratch and sniff technology, it is deep and heavy, sniffing it is liked sinking into a forest floor, one of those forests where the loam is so dense that the floor feels springy. There are notes of wet wood, loam, pine forest…and here is where it gets really fun, cherry wood and cocoa, yeah, there are cocoa notes in this, which is pretty darn cool.

Doing the usual toss the leaves into the elephant Duan Ni and then giving it a rinse, when I wrote the notes for this one in my tea notebook I was sharing with Ben and said tea friend (ok, his name is Fish, I am tired of calling him tea friend!) because we wanted to get tea drunk off of a Puerh. The aroma of the now soggy leaves is a very foresty thing, the notes are strong loam and mushroom soil, it is very much a mixed wood forest rather than a strictly pine forest like some of the puerhs I stick my nose into. The liquid is so foresty, it is really transporting me to a lush, heavily rained on forest with a thick blanket of loam and a finishing notes of really sweet chocolate.

Ooh, that first steep is fine! Delightfully smooth to the point of silky, like biting into a sweet chocolate bar accompanied by pine sap and rich loam. I am really loving the mouthfeel and chocolate notes the most I think, I mean yeah, that forest loam taste is great, but it is not often you get to mix loam and chocolate in the same tea.

Onward to the second steep, it is like an adventure, going deeper into the recently rained on forest, you smell the rich and very thick loam with notes of mushrooms and wet wood. This time around the taste is not as sweet, we are getting a full force of forest, I ate the chocolate bar at the beginning of the path and have now surrendered to the forest completely. The mouthfeel is still super smooth, and the sipping experience finishes out with wet pine wood and a touch of mushrooms.

The aroma of the third steep is not changed much from the second, still very potent loam and wet wood of a healthy forest. It very much so evokes the forests I rambled around in the mountains of Pennsylvania. Like the second steep, this one only has a glimmer of sweetness and a full face full of loam, the mouthfeel has become thick, and I feel like I am sinking into the forest, it is heavy and sleepy. I am loving the heavy chi coming off this tea, me thinks I will keep it around to drink when I have a serious chi stagnation, it feels very invigorating. Many steeps were had, tea drunkitude was very much so achieved!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/05/whispering-pines-tea-co-2012-huron-gold.html

I stumbled upon this leaf and once I saw the companies name I knew I had to try it. I love the inspirations behind each of these blends. This one in particular was unique from the others I have tried from this company. The dry leaf consists of small dark knots of black tea and herbs dotted throughout. I brewed a generous amount in my press. The brewed liquor carried a refreshing minty aroma. The taste was a sour lemon. I sat out on my porch watching the puddles form and sipped this herbal brew. This liquor carried a smooth body of lemon and mint and had a light undertone of BBQ. The best part was after every sip there would be a sharp tangy sweetness balanced at the tip of my tongue. I really liked this brew but by the second steeping it had faded. This was a great tea, and I assume it was better fresh. I believe this to be another success from this company, although not as good as its other counterparts.

https://instagram.com/p/2wTlpQTGWK/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Finished this one off today. It sure didn’t last long but it was good while I had it!

Backlog: I received this tea while doing a detox and all my teas were tasting off so I waited until I was done and was sure my taste buds were back to normal. I was really looking forward to trying this tea and it does not disappoint!

It definitely is pricey but due to low quantities it’s not something a person could stock up on either. That just makes it a special tea for once in awhile.

The leaves of this tea are sooo green. Almost luminescent when wet. I think I just brewed it Western style for 2 min at 185.

It’s a very light green tea. There is nuttiness which is in most green but the nutty flavour was subdued and brought to the forefront was a sweet spinach/asparagus. It reminded me of Japanese teas but not as much umami, lighter and more sweet. Most Japanese have very short infusion times and will become bitter or too strong if brewed over that. This tea can take a longer infusion time (brewed up to 3 min on 2nc infusion)and still remain sweet.

It does not taste like any maojian I’ve ever had. It tastes way better. Sooooo delicious. I wish this tea was cheap. I’d stock pile it.

It also has a major energy kick to it. You wouldn’t expect that from a green but it does. I notice with Japanese teas , they have a big caffeine kick too. Maybe it’s how the leaves are processed. I wonder if the leaves here were processed like the Japanese teas?

Nice bright green leaf color and a wonderful oolong taste. Just a little too floral for me. Floral taste is orchid/hibiscus to me. I may have oversteeped it since I didn’t realize it was going to be floral. I probably would have had better results cutting 30 seconds off of the steep time.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there!
I just got home from playing a Mother’s Day gig, & I’m finally sampling this tea, sent to me from Sil.

My taste buds have been off for awhile, thanks to horrible allergies this year, so I’m not gonna give a great description here, but what I can say is this cup of tea makes me think of a light spring rain. It has a delicate fresh quality to it.

Sipdown from yesterday!

I brewed this twice while watching a movie yesterday with the hubby. The smell of this tea is sooo good – rich and smoky and fudgy – but the flavour was not quite as layered. Steeped it twice, though, since this is a tea that would be difficult for me to restock.

I’ve heard that Tippy’s vanilla tea is similar, and since Tippy’s is Canadian, I may order it in the future. In the meantime, bye bye, vanilla!

Backlog from the weekend:

Goodness, this tea smells lovely when you brew it. I totally get the fudgy notes that people say this tea has. However, I’m not sure if vanilla is the most predominant flavour for me. I get instead a sweet sort of leather/smoke note, plus those chocolate notes. I steeped it twice and was pretty content with the results.

I have about 1 good serving of this left, and I’m looking forward to it. I think that the yunnan in this blend is the kind of yunnan I prefer: leather flavour over sweet potato.

How have I never reviewed this tea? I feel like I must have and it was in my cupboard, but no previous review to be found. This is a backlog sipdown, but I remember really enjoying it. It was also a pleasant transition straight black tea as the seasons change. During the Fall and Winter and found myself reaching for the bold malty/choco blends like Fujian and Laoshan Black, but come Spring and Summer- Ailaoshan Black is where it’s at. :)

I enjoyed this – it is very smooth, not bitter at all, and has a malty rich flavor. What differentiates it for me from other blacks I’ve tried is the hay flavor mixed in there, which I normally don’t taste in black teas. That said, it didn’t wow me enough to want to buy more.