Whispering Pines Tea Company

The first time I drank this I was a little underwhelmed, now don’t get me wrong, it was good, just not ‘Whispering Pines’ good, however the more I drink this, the more I’m drawn to it and the more I reach for it first thing in the morning, every morning. So, again, I should not judge on first impressions and honestly, maybe I’m just too used to teas that punch you in the face with their flavor. On second pass this is an impressively complex tea, it whispers it’s delicious flavors at you oh so subetly. Full of bready, caramelly, honey notes, I’m sad that this was a tea originally in my drink down list and it has now firmly (and rightfully so) asserted itself on my must buy more as soon as I run out list! Yum!

I really like this tea a lot.

I’ve had a migraine most of the afternoon. We were on the road for part of it. I pulled my hoodie over my eyes and just tried to stay calm. Then I slept.

I’m awake again and my head is feeling better. The rest of me feels like I was hit by a truck. Migraines always do that to me.

Tea is part of what I need to feel better, something light. That’s why I picked this.

I really like this tea.

Ooh. Now this, I like.

I like it a lot.

It’s beautiful in my mouth. Almost sweet, incredibly silky. I’m not quite sure what this tastes like, but it is really good.

Yes, I could drink a lot of this.

And it’s inexpensive, as far as that goes, too. I will be getting some more of this with my next WP order and try aging it.

A very lovely dancong! The dry leaves are dark and spindly, with a fragrance similar to other dancongs I had tried—citrus, honey, and incense, but with more of a floral perfume that was unique to this one. The brewed tea is intoxicatingly fragrant. In terms of flavor, in addition to the very clear honeyed citrus sweetness, there’s also a hint of roasted nuts, and a different sort of quality that I associate with other oolongs like shui xian—a kind of sweet, aromatic roastiness. It’s not a “heavy” tea, but somehow an intense one.

Also tasty.
Hopefully I’ll write a better review next time.

I drank this earlier this week, it was one of the teas I took with me to work on Wednesday. I drank it again this morning while I was making one of my awesome breakfasts: homemade sausage patties (no offense to the vegetarians, but it’s amazing what you can do with a lb of locally raised ground pork & some spices), asparagus & eggs. Tony was gloating over his package of english muffins, which always irritates me, so I made an almond flour coffee cup muffin in the microwave (one of the rare things I actually use that evil machine for), cut it in half & put it in the toaster, & it was tasty with apricot jelly.
I have nothing really to say about this tea except that it is good…very good. My lack of comments is not due to the tea, it’s just that I drank it a few hours ago.

Finally got to pick up some of this tea! Sarsonator sent me a sample a few months ago and I loved it, ever since I’ve been wanting to buy it! :D Got my order today and I’m so excited to try everything!
This, I oversteeped the first time (surprise, surprise), so it didn’t taste the best. But second time I steeped it, I did it just under two minutes. Definitely not as strong as the first steep, but I got notes of honey and bread. (:
When I first tried this I thought it was super bready. This time it is pretty bready, but the honey balances it out more. Which is still fine, even though I’d want more of a bready flavor, but still really like this one!
Maybe if I steep it right the first time it will come out more like I remember it-haha! I will have to try it out!
Either way I am SUPER happy to have this one back in my stash! :D Going to be enjoying the rest of it!

Mmmm this tea! Randomly started craving a bready tea this afternoon. And after like two hours of trying and failing to relax I gave in and decided to finally drink tea. Glad I did. I am beginning to feel a bit calmer….a bit. xD But hopefully I’ll get to relax at some point today. That would be nice…
Anyway, this is the last of the sample that Sarsonator sent me D: And I’ve officially decided that this will be in my next WP order! It’s one of the breadiest teas I’ve ever had. And I love it! :D

Got a sample of this tea from the awesome Sarsonator!
Been wanting to try it for a while but whenever I order it seems to be out of stock. :S
I love the look of this tea-it’s so different. It’s curly and soft. I never imagined I’d be so amused by how certain teas looked and felt. But different textures of teas are so unique and awesome-it just makes me smile. :P
I thought this tea was going to taste a lot like the Golden Snail, but it smells and tastes a lot more like bread than sweet potatoes.
It’s smooth with hints of honey and cocoa. But they aren’t too strong in this cup at least. Maybe in a few steeps those flavors will come out more.
Noticed that a lot of people taste malt in this tea, but I’m not really getting any malt for some reason.
So, my conclusion: A lot more bready than the Golden Snails, which I actually really like. Think I will have to get more of this myself! :O Another win by Whispering Pines! :D

I made it through the 2nd week of teaching classes, & although it was a very very busy action packed week, it went by quickly & was good :)
I’m rewarding myself with this cup of awesomeness. Thick & rich, I steeped 1 T x 3min/5min resteep.
A worthy reward!

Oh BTW, my favorite vendor on Ali Express, Make Friends by Tea, has all their yixings at 10% off…just thought some of you would like to know!
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/346539

First, yay, for this new official Whispering Pines Great Lakes Label Shu Pu-erh, what a creative idea!!! It fits so well with WP brand name, great job Brenden :-)

I received this generous sample in my last order, thank you Brenden.

Does pu’erh still scare some of you? Like, it’s been on your mind, but you are still hesitant about it?

The descriptors “fishy, barn, leather, pond water, seaweed” revolt you?

Then give this a try. This is as smooth as can be.

The pu’erh for the non believers.

Cause it is silky and creamy beyond belief.

The dry leaf is quite unusual, all golden, just stunning .

It produces a dark warm copper brew.

First sip and I think, wow…this is so what I need right now.

Silky and velvety, coats my entire mouth with mellow and sweet.

Everything is subtle but far from being boring. I get notes of cereals, like toasted bran.

It’s also a bit fruity, dried fruits, like raisins with a soft cocoa feel.

Yum, chocolate covered raisins. It’s a little earthy and woodsy, but nothing like most shou pu’erh.

The later steeps bring a nice minty finish, that fresh mouthfeel I like so much.

This tea brings me to a tranquil and beautiful place. It warms my heart and fills my head with happy.

And yes…I will need more of this.

Thanks again Brenden for this wonderful offering…And congratulations for the launch of the Great Lakes collection!

Pics of the session:

http://instagram.com/p/sA71jZwh3e/

http://instagram.com/p/sA8hdpwh4b/

GCTTB i wanted to revisit this one and i’m glad i did as i’m not finding it to be nearly the delicious treat i thought it was back a while ago. Still a decent cup but nothing i NEED to restock, which is better for my wallet because of the stupid dollar sigh

i really like this tea. Sad to see it go, but i suspect that it’ll be back in my cupboard at the next chance i get. I am a fan! :)

another WP tea from today. Not sure why i’ve been gravitating to them so often over the past few weeks but maybe because they’re new-er? I’ve discovered that it’s harder and harder to find what i want to drink the smaller my cupboard gets. lol more often than not these days i’m finding that i feel like i have no choices! I suspect that 80ish teas is a better fit for me than anything under that number….120 is probably where i want to sit though including samples and swaps haha.

This is a lovely tea that will be restocked when i finish this one up heh/

i don’t know what else to say about this one. I rather enjoy it and that’s why i drank it, love it, will get more hahaha. In tea cupboard related news though, i have no teas left from may, so i just need to finish off my three remaining teas from april in order to have a cupboard that is only 6 months old! that’s pretty exciting in my silly books :)

bumping up the rating on this one a little because today, it was positively perfect. Seriously…i am a fan of a number of WP’s straight blacks…possibly even more so than his flavoured blacks :) I’ll have to look at restocking this once i’m through more of my WP teas…still have a few months i can hold off for i think…..maybe….

Final Count: 83 (thanks to Cameron B mostly!)

noms. at this rate i’ll be through all my WP teas in record time! I think i’ve been starved for new straight teas so these have been a welcome addition to my rotation. Not much to keep on saying about this one beyond the fact that it’s a great little tea full of delicious cocoa notes and a slight sweetness that makes me smile :)

dexter sent this one my way so that i could try a few more WP teas before i place an order (gotta love tea friends who share!) . so the minute the water hit these leaves it was like ZOMG CHOCOLATE..HEEELLLOOOOOOOOOO! lol

ugh work… ok so long story short. need this to come back for september so i can have moar. that is all.

This is interesting sheng. Nice woody qualities. I am getting a little bitterness/sourness, but it could just be me. I never seem to do as well with mao cha as I do with sheng cakes. Perhaps I just prefer cakes? Or I haven’t got the brewing down on mao cha yet. Either way, not bad, but with as many other shengs I have found that I REALLY love, I probably won’t seek this one out again. I will definitely re-steep this a few more times and see if anything else interesting comes into play flavor wise. I do really prefer ones with a little sweetness/fruitiness!

Thanks for the opportunity to taste some of it, Cheri! I really appreciate it :)

As before a very nice tea that brings about happy feelings, the wet leave aroma this time smells kinda like cooking spinach.

I’ve drank this one quite a few times now since I received it and I just wasn’t sure about posting my review because it kinda differs from the others and the tasting notes on site, like the lime and cashew and i don’t think I even know what Miso is, not sure lol,
but hey we all taste things differently right?? :)

The dry leafe aroma is sweet and slightly smokey, wet leafe aroma is vegetal and hay-like, it smells like breakfast in the country.
The Tea flavor is nice and delicate with vegetal and woody notes, a little nutty and somewhat savory in general. At times the flavor has some smokey notes as well as an earthy kind of note like woodsy or mossy and a slight sweet pine/cedar type note with floral undertones.
This one also has a nice creamy almost buttery mouth-feel with a slight cooling sensation on the end that is very nice.
This one is quite pleasant to drink and it makes me feel pretty good, i think it has good energy.
I also like this one cold, as it cools the smokey notes increase and a slight pleasant bitter is present, it has an almost completely different profile when cooled.
If you like raw puerhs or green teas or even smokey teas then you’d like this one.

I do think this one makes me high or tea-drunk, it gives me that nice funny, hapy, giddy almost spaced out feeling if i drink enough, hehehe (cloud 9)

I purchased this from a stash sale quite a few weeks ago (I don’t remember whose sale it was). Not sure what I was thinking, since I haven’t really liked milk oolong or green oolong in general in the past. So it’s been sitting around, taking up one of my tins for some time now. I decided I might as well try it before I automatically move it to the rehoming box. The leaves are tightly rolled and in a variety of sizes, and the color is somewhere in the green/yellow/brown spectrum. Dry scent is grassy and vegetal with sweetened condensed milk and peaches. I brewed about 1.5 teaspoons of leaf for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

The brewed aroma is pretty much what I’d expect from this type of oolong – buttery vegetal green with cream and some peach notes. And the taste is pretty much along those lines, too. I do appreciate that there’s not really much floral here, even in the aftertaste. It is definitely too light in flavor for my tastes. I will say that this tea tastes creamier and more milky than any other milk oolong I’ve tried, so that’s nice. But it’s still a “no” for me. :)