Whispering Pines Tea Company

The first steeping of this was a little confused, I couldn’t figure out just what I was tasting. I tasted the vanilla and probably the saffron, both strong, both powerful, competing. As I continued to steep this the vanilla got slowly stronger. By the fifth steeping the vanilla was dominate. The other flavors moved to the back burner. This was a really good tea. I would probably rate this tea lower if I had only steeped it once. This is definitely a tea for multiple steepings.

I steeped this five times in a 8oz YIxing teapot. I used 2 tsp leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 2 min, 2.5 min, 3 min, 4 min, and 5 min. It was delightful by the fifth steeping. I will have to consider buying some of this.

Cheri was kind and generous enough to provide me with a sample of this (pricey) tea! Thanks so much, dear! The leaves are black, long, quite thin, and twisty. They definitely look similar to Fujian Black and Ailaoshan Black, the two teas that make up this blend. Dry scent is very chocolatey with sweet vanilla, yum yum! Cheri’s sample was about 2 teaspoons, so I just used the whole thing and used slightly more water (10 oz versus 8 oz) to compensate. I let it steep for 3 minutes.

Once brewed, it smells very strongly of grain and bread with plenty of malt. There’s also lovely chocolate and sweet vanilla with a bit of dried fruit (from the Ailaoshan I presume). I must say, I was expecting much more vanilla in the taste… The strongest notes are heavy grain and bread with that dill/caraway flavor that I often get with Fujian teas. There’s also a lot of dark bitter cocoa flavor and a touch of dark dried fruits (maybe raisins or prunes). I am surprised to not find much vanilla here, and I’m also surprised that this tea comes off are more savory than sweet to me. I’m partially relieved that I don’t love it based on the price, and partially worried that I’m missing something that other people are tasting… Lol.

This was included as a sample in my order. Feeling a bit blue this morning, so I decided to try it based on the name, which is an awesome name for tea.

It’s quite good, and very gentle for a breakfast tea. For some reason, I really want to add some cinnamon to it, so I might give that a try for the second cup. I wish I had some jam and scones or croissants to go with it. Or maybe some lembas bread…

http://instagram.com/p/sr7mC1lIVI/

This tea is excellent with strong notes of vanilla and secondary notes of cedar as well as the floral taste of the oolong base. The vanilla flavoring is strong and lasted throughout all six steeps I put it through, although it did get weaker.

I steeped this six times in a 180ml teapot with 6.7g leaf and 190 degree water. I steeped it for 10 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 30 sec,, and 1 min.

This tea is good, end of statement. It is among the very best. The cedar, vanilla, and tea blend perfectly. There is strong notes of vanilla and cedar in the early infusions. The cedar slowly gets weaker while the vanilla seems to get stronger. Even in the sixth steep the vanilla is strong. There is no bitterness to the tie guan yin tea used for this tea, it is very smooth. I steeped this six times and it did not appreciably weaken at all. It was strong tea throughout.

I steeped this six times in a 150ml gaiwan with 5.5g leaf and 190 degree water. I steeped it for 15 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 30 sec, 1 min, and 2 min. I have not yet thrown out the leaves and may go back for more.

Thank you Sarsonator for this tea. This tea is absolutely amazing. It is some of the highest quality oolong I have ever drank. The vanilla creates a buttery sweetness that is absolutely incredible. This tea was delicious from the first steep. It was not bitter in the sense of many oolongs although there was a tinge of bitterness. This quickly faded by the third steep. Amazingly, as each steep passed the vanilla seemed to get stronger in flavor. I am on the eighth steep now and the vanilla flavor is amazing. I thought I might describe this as almost as good as the Tung Ting Oolong from Tea Trekker before I had drank this. Having drank this I would describe the Tung TIng Oolong by Tea Trekker as almost as good as this. This is the best Oolong I have ever drank. While I would not use the word " tea drunk" this tea has had an incredible relaxing effect on me, is that what is meant by Qi? I don’t know for sure but I am sure glad that Whispering Pines will soon have this back in stock, because I have to buy some. Even though I put this through eight steepings, the leaves are not totally played out. I shall save it for tomorrow and resteep it at least two more times.

I steeped this 8 times in an 180ml teapot with 190 degree water and 5.5g leaf. I steeped it for 15 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, and 2 min. Tomorrow I shall begin with a five minute stetep and see how many more steepings I can get out of the leaves.

Lewis & Clarke TTB

This is going to be another one of those terrible notes because I was playing Diablo III again… Oopsies. The leaves are those type that are thin and dark and partially curved into little ‘u’ shapes and loops. Dry scent was faint jasmine.

I found that this tea had a little too much jasmine for me when it was hot, I couldn’t really taste the green tea base much. As it cooled, I liked it more, but it was still very jasmine-y. Apparently I would like jasmine green teas cold brewed! :P

Polished this off in my teapot yesterday. I am going to miss this. Might have to reorder after I work through the other Whispering Pines teas.

The lovely TheTeaFairy gave me a list of Oolongs that she recommended for my upcoming exploration of Oolongs. One of them was a Whispering Pines tea, and I have wanted to try Brandon’s teas out for awhile, as the folks I follow here seem to universally enjoy them . So I ordered an ounce each of 6, including the Oolong. This, obviously, is not a review of the oolong, as I’m going to wait until I have ordered the other oolongs on the list to do a series of tastings of them. Can I say oolong one more time? Oolong.

Anyway, since I am waiting, I wanted to try out one of the other 5 teas, and I choose this one to start with. I ripped open the envelope and the scent is lovely. Tried to scoop up a teascoop of leaves, and they were not cooperating, but the couple I did get were blue-black and nice looking. Tried again, and this time I got a nice scoopful and a very bedraggled… feather? Oh my. It was quite beat up and barely recognizable as such, but definitely was one as I peered at it under a magnifying glass.

I always did picture the Jabberwocky as a partially feathered creature…

The feather looks like it got roasted along with the tea, so I think it’s been in there awhile. Pretty sure that any mites that might have been able to hitch a ride would have passed away through roasting and lack of lunch by now, I’m going to pretend all is well and assume it probably will be. I am far less freaked out by this than the human hair I found in a mini-tuocha of pu-erh once. Which, I don’t know what that says about my own mental foibles… :D

Okay, it’s all brewed up, I’ve frothed my sweetener and half&half, and added the tea. The liquor was a nice medium brown. My cup tastes malty and I am quite enjoying it. It’s not a heavy malt, but it’s there, and I don’t notice any bird-like aftertaste. We will see if I start sprouting feathers later today ;)

There was a small sticker holding the “thanks for your order” note to the box, and I quite liked it. It’s from e.e. cummings: “Your head is a living forest full of songbirds.”
giggle The quote seems quite fitting now!

This is my second stab at this tea. The first came out weak and inconsequential in the cup…so if first you don’t succeed, try again!

Ordering Whispering Pines Second Breakfast was close to a no-brainer for me. I love good tea blends. What I mean by I love good tea blends is that I love good tea in good tea blends. Because Whispering Pines sells so few straight black teas, and all that I have tasted have been to my liking, it was easy to know I would like this tea. And like I do!

Second Breakfast dry leaf in incredibly chocolatey smelling. Not cocoa. Chocolate. The chocolate note joins with the sugar cane quality in the Ailaoshan black tea to give a strong scent of warm chocolate syrup. Wet, the leaves unfurl long and beautiful. The liquor of Second Breakfast is a warm amber brown that smells of earth and chocolate and a touch of dark stone fruit. In the cup, the keemun’s earthiness mutes the usual boldness of the Ailaoshan black. It expands the base flavor profile of this tea so much so that there isn’t much going on the middle of the cup. There is some grain and a touch of malt as a middle note, which is a pleasing combination with the earthy chocolate bottom note. Top note is a dark stone fruit and a dark forest floral note. Nothing bright in this cup, but nothing overly dark and brooding either. If this cup was a forest and you were Lil Red Riding Hood, you’d continue on your way to your grandma’s house. The audience wouldn’t be waiting for a big “BOO”, and hopefully, when you got to grandma’s house, she’d have a lovely large cup of Second Breakfast waiting for you. Warm, earthy and comforting, it is a good cup of tea with a lovely deep flavor profile.

Cold Brew Sipdown (119)!

Goodbye sweet chocolate tea! I’ve no immediate plants to make another Whispering Pines order but when I do I’m sure this will probably be included. This tea really grew on me and I’m sure the ‘new’ version is even better.

Bumping up my rating.

Finally cold brewed this blend instead of accidentally brewing up Jabberywocky by mistake. The tins looks so damn similar! However, the frustration of brewing up the wrong thing was well worth it because in the end this was a super rewarding cold brew. Interestingly, it was incredibly chocolate flavoured as anticipated, but there were also flavours that reminded me strikingly of carrot cake (minus cream cheese icing). Chocolate carrot cake? HELL YEAH!

Actually, carrot cake in general is pretty exciting. But I’m not talking any carrot cake flavour with this cold brew. I mean gourmet carrot cake; the stuff that’s giant and fluffy where you can see all the big carrot shreds and not just fine orange bits, with visible chunks of walnut and maybe raisins, and a mellow spice taste, and almost a ‘molasses-y’ brown sugar sweetness too. Damn good carrot cake…

The more I drink this the more it grows on me.

Last night my brother and I were going to go see Mr. Holmes in theaters but last minute he backed out, so I had a nice evening in doors and I watched Netflix instead. In the end, I wound up watching The Great Gatsby, which I’ve seen many many times now. I still think it’s one of the best book to movie adaptations I’ve EVER seen. It deserved much more attention/praise than it got. And people who find it too visual clearly haven’t read the book (or at least not in depth); nearly every single theme in the book is symbolized/represented by colour. But that’s not the point.

The point is that this is the tea I drank while I watched the movie, and it was phenomenal. There are several scenes in the movie/book that take place over tea and I felt like this would have been worthy of being served at any of those occasions. Can you imagine Jordan Baker convincing Nick to introduce his married cousin to his elusive ‘party boy’ neighbor over a cup of smooth, dark chocolate tasting North Winds? Or how about Gatsby and Daisy meeting up after a five year separation in Carroway’s tiny little house sipping on teacups of North Winds and enjoying the fleeting notes of berry juice on the tips of their tongues as they whisper sweet nothings into each others ears?

I can.

Wednesday morning my mom and I were too tired from moving to unpack right away, so we found one of the boxes with tea things in it and she went through and sniffed all of the tins of tea until she found one she liked; this is the one she picked and she would not believe me that it’s a blend of pure, unflavored teas.

The reason she would’ve believe me was that to her it tasted like, and I quote, “one of the best chocolate teas she’d ever had”. We enjoyed about a pots worth each while watching The Walking Dead on Netflix. I stopped watching in Season 3 and she’s on Season 5 so I was a little confused, but mostly I just liked getting to curl up on the couch and share this tea with her. It makes me happy she can appreciate tea other than DAVIDsTEA. Too bad it turns out she has expensive taste…

But really; this is very chocolatey, but also has notes of dark cherries, malt, and maybe even to a lesser extent bran? Or at least that what I got out of Wednesday’s pots of tea.

Made this for work today, with a splash of milk added in after steeping.

By the time I got to drinking it, it was hours after my shift and I was already at home curled up on the couch. The tea had definitely gone cold, but that turns out to not be a bad this because now this tastes like the best chocolate milk I’ve ever had! Rich cocoa, cream, vanilla, and malt notes with some honey sweetness and flickering baked French bread notes at the tail.

Mostly chocolate though.

EDIT: And it turns out I’ve totally made the observation about this being great cold before. Plus one for consistency, I guess!

This is tasting note 2700! I missed 2666, which I’m definitely sad about because I bought the perfect tea for the occasion not long ago (Devil’s Mate). Boo!

There’s got to be a better way to word the “title” of this tea. As is, the way it’s put now is a complete mouthful and frankly quite stupid. For one, I had a really hard time pulling this one up in the search bar. Even cutting it down to “North Winds: Old Version” and “North Winds: New Version” would be so, so much better. I know we had a topic about this on the discussion board back in January, but the fact the title of this is still like this definitely is still a pet peeve.

Anyway, I bought this one back in November for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. I actually had forgotten when I purchased it that I’d already tried this before, though I just went back and read my review and it was favourable and I gave this a good rating too so I don’t know why it wasn’t as memorable. For the record, I’ve had this a few times since buying it as well – I just haven’t logged it, for whatever reason.

I like this one a lot though; it’s really consistent. Just like I remarked eight months ago when I first had it, it’s got a very complete, full bodied flavour with rich chocolate and baked bread notes and sweeter vanilla intertwined. I also think it’s at it’s best when it has naturally gone cold; it somehow tastes sweeter and smoother.

I think this one is a really strong candidate for operation “Make my own Monk’s blend” (which is definitely still going), particularly because it already has very natural vanilla notes and I think a strong enough flavour to support grenadine…

So look out for that review, I guess.

Sipdown (131)!

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample! I’m definitely excited to get to try another Whispering Pines tea since I’ve only had a few, and I’d like to experience enough that I can hopefully place an order, with confidence, sooner rather than later.

I made this one in my timolino, and admittedly I let it oversteep a little bit since I got pretty distracted when brewing it. I’m going to assume it was those couple extra minutes steeping that resulted in that little pinch of bitterness this brew had. But actually, despite that bitterness this was still really solid and tasty. It more prominently had notes of chocolate and malt/bread but there were also some very faint stonefruit notes in the far back. The chocolate notes in this also lingered sweetly.

Maybe I’d order this…

Lewis & Clarke TTB

I have been wanting to try this one, and someone kindly added a (wee) bit of it to the box! Thanks, someone! My teaspoon was the only one left in the pouch, so it was very broken up and I didn’t really see any elderberries in there. Dry, it mostly smelled mildly minty. There was only about teaspoon left, so I used less water than I normally would have for this cup (suggested volume is 1.5 tsp per 8 ounces).

This definitely reminds me of Elder Grove a bit, and the two do have several common ingredients. I wish there was more berry flavor, but I think that was just due to my teaspoon not having many elderberries in it. The main flavor is mint, but it’s mild and smooth and not at all abrasive. I also get a nice mellow roasty flavor, I assume from the ceder leaves, and a touch of cinnamony spice. Overall, tasty! I would like to try this one again with a more representative sample. :D

The guest of honor for a spontaneous late afternoon shou party. This was my first time for this one. I don’t have my shouxing seasoned yet so I did this in the gaiwan.

The first steep was nice and balanced. There is leather here but not overwhelming leather, just nice and earthy.

So far my favorite steep is the 3rd. It mellows into sweetness with a camphor tingle at the end.

I’m well into this but I have to say the body feel is immediate. First a little wisp of full body relaxation and then I relaxed into a lovely puddle. The head hum is deep and steady and yummy. My legs are a little rubbery and I’m leaning back and listening to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX3UEGFrINI over and over while I go father into this yummyiness

This is a delicious, smooth shou. I’m glad I have it. Another winner Hobbit! Now I’m gonna go lay down and listen some more and enjoy this.

Wasn’t too sure of this one when I tried it the other day, but on the second try, I actually find myself liking it. I thought it was really earthy at first…probably because I over-steeped it. xD But I really taste the bread and honey flavors. Kinda earthy still. But the bready-ness makes up for it to me. Enjoying this tea a lot more the second time around! (:

Lewis & Clarke TTB

First off, I really like that Brenden separated this into individual servings, it makes it so easy. And I love that they have quotes on them! Cute.

Leaves are smallish and very dark, and they’re long and twisty. Dry scent is quite sweet with a lot of malt and some fruitiness. The aroma is very fruity with a lovely burnt sugar scent. There’s also some dark bread with honey in there too.

I think the tablespoon of tea is a bit much for 8 ounces, but it didn’t come out bitter. This is very strong malt with some dark bread and molasses. I can also taste a dark fruitiness underneath that is very concentrated and reminds me of raisins without the sweetness. The end of the sip mellows out a little bit more and goes more into bready territory, which is lovely.

Overall, this tea is tasty but I don’t feel the need to order it because I already have two of the three teas it’s composed of. :)