Whispering Pines Tea Company

Cold brewing this one for the last days of summer. Clear honey sweetness, a touch of malt and baked-goods flavor, and a rich buttery finish that lingers on, clearing up to just a hint of something floral. The previous time I cold brewed this tea for a long time (8+ hours instead of 6 like this time), I also got a distinct note of fresh, fibrous stone fruit. As expected, this is a very wonderful iced tea, rich but crisp.

The dry tea for this one comes in little fuzzy golden coils. The name is very accurate! The dry aroma is earthy, with pumpkin or squash notes, like a lighter version of Verdant Tea’s Golden Fleece, which is the only other experience I have with a “golden” Yunnan black tea.

During brewing, the little snails unfurl fully, and the liquor becomes a golden orange color. The taste is rich, again having some mellow pumpkin in the profile, which becomes quite harmonious with delicate sweetness, a hint of something cocoa-like, and an identifiable, crisp and clean black tea fragrance. The finish is very smooth.

Being curious, I brewed Golden Snail and Golden Fleece side by side. The biggest difference might be color—Golden Snail leaned warmer while the Golden Fleece liquor was more green-tinged. In terms of taste, they are very similar, with Golden Snail having less of that lingering buttery finish. But the best qualities of both teas are very close to each other. After trying to compare, I poured the remainders of the two cups together, and that was somehow even better. In order for them to balance each other, there had to be a difference, I just haven’t put my finger on it yet.

I may cold brew this one later to see if I can bring out the full extent of its attributes, and any subtle differences. (After all, cold brewing got Golden Fleece its 100 point rating so it’s only fair!)

Backlog:

As I mentioned in my full-length review of this tea – http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/05/26/campfire-blend-from-whispering-pines-tea-company/ – I don’t think I’ve ever had a tea with cedar leaves in it before, or if I have, I don’t recall it, and it’s such an unusual ingredient that I would like to think that I would have remembered it!

I like this blend. The cedar lends a very rustic sort of flavor to the cup. The chicory and cloves add to that rustic quality. Pleasant, autumnal, this tea makes me want autumn to get here quickly (as does the heat that we’ve been enduring over the past weeks).

Very flavorful, I like the rich, robust black tea base, and the rooibos lightens the cup a little bit and adds just a touch of sweet, nutty flavor.

Aaaaah. This.

It deserves all the praises.

Just a quick review cause I have fully reviewed it in the past.

Rivendell gives me a pudding mouth. It’s so sweet and creamy!

This vanilla is decadent…very fragrant, velvety and fruity.

I like the little saltiness I get at the end of every sip. Mineral notes from the oolong.

Surprisingly, this is not floral at all for a green oolong blend. That’s probably because of the cedar leaves. They bring a touch

of spiciness and evergreen. Hard to describe but so fresh and yummy.

Even if you’re not a fan of greener oolongs, you should still give this a try.

I brewed it in my glass pot and sipped 32 oz very slowly…it was pure ecstasy at every sip.

I’m not lowering my rating, well worth 100!!

Pic:

http://instagram.com/p/y5U4Jnwh-H/

It’s 2 am and I just spent the last four hours going back and forth inside/outside the house. There were possibilities of auroras tonight, that’s why. I feel very lucky to have witnessed them more than once in my life…

I was telling friends earlier that auroras had been life changing for me… totally worth being patient for. I wish for everyone to witness them at least once in their lives.

Unfortunately, they didn’t happen tonight.

Oh well…another night hopefully.

Now I’m drinking this tea and shockers! It’s good.

This is a mouthful of fresh evergreens and creamy buttery oolong.

Dame Vanilla adds all kinds of velvety and fruity notes to the blend.

Just wow.

I don’t have a bunch to say, see previous review.

I will just nom it till it can give no more.

And that’s all.

For different reasons, I waited a long time to get this blend home. I already knew I was going to at least like it, cause it’s made of three ingredients I love: TGY, cedar leaves and some mighty vanilla bean.

In my mind, if you’re going to name a tea Rivendell, you better deliver…cause you know, we’re talking about the epic world here, full of magic, mystery and unusualness.

I’m using a small gaiwan.

As soon as the water hits the leaves, I feel transported. Sweet Jesus. I can’t really come up with words to describe the scent, hard to do it justice. I’d say it smells like a delicate vanilla flower that has grown in a luxuriant forest. The best I can come up with.

The first sip and I’m thinking nooooo!!!! Tea Whiz of the Woods, what have you done? Giving me another addiction, really? I can’t take this anymore. My monthly order keeps growing and growing!

I completely got lost in the session and forgot to take notes. Suspended in time, I just enjoyed the moment. But it’s easy to remember what it tastes like. Not so easy to attempt a description. It confuses me. TGY, check, I like it on its own. But how could the addition of only two other ingredients morphs it into something so different?

First thing that hit me was how creamy it was. I mean there’s creamy and creamy. This is intense creamy. Vanilla pudding mouth.

Then, nice subtle florals are flirting with that fresh menthol mouthfeel that I get from good TGY, amplified by the cedar leaves.

Some fruit notes also join the party. To me, they taste like pineapple and dehydrated apples. I picked that up cause I eat lots of dried apples, I love them. That gongfu session produced many steeps, all better than one another

This tea delivers. It breathes magic, it’s mysterious and unusual. So yeah, it totally deserves to be called Rivendell.

(I can even picture Hobbits, serving this tea to their guests in their Hobbit houses!)

I have no choice but to give the highest rate.

Tea Hobbit, giving it 100 is like giving you a “Tolkien” of my appreciation, hehe. Love it!

Pic:

http://instagram.com/p/r8QLZmwhyU/

I got a sample of this today from MzPriss

I really wanted to love this tea, I really did.

I liked it a lot, but I didn’t love it. It smelled amazing, but the tea itself was just very good and not amazing. It was cocoa and vanilla and something else. But it wasn’t amazing.

I prefer Cocoa Amore over GO.

Who knew? I wasn’t expecting that after all the love this tea gets. But it is what it is and I’m honest about it.

I’m really glad I got to try it. It helped me decide what to order tonight, because after the day I had, I needed more of the River Rain. And I’m still good on the CA, so I didn’t have to order that, but I did order more Arbor Mist, because I’d like to try aging that.

So after a good dinner, and a successful order placed, totally breaking my tea buying hiatus, I’m going to have some gelato, a mug of tea and head to bed.

sweet potatoes and bread and..honey? Thanks for sending this one my way dexter While it’s a lovely tea, I prefer the way the eldergrove blend tastes. This was one that i would have picked up, so i’m happy to be able to cross it off my list, though it IS tasty. Keep up the great work brendan! :)

This was my first loose-leaf white tea, and it won’t be the last. There is a sort of juicy almost “mouth-watering” effect that the flavor has. I have not experienced this with any other types of tea, and as this is my first white tea I am unsure if this “juicy” property is found in other white teas or if it is unique to this tea in particular.

The crisp notes of hay are definitely in the spotlight, shadowed by a quiet sweetness and a very subtle honey/melon-like tone. I usually add a bit of sugar to my teas, but this one works just fine if not better without it. This tea is everything I imagined white teas would be; delicate, crisp, and clean. I look forward to seeing how this tea will stand up to other whites as my cupboard grows!

Brewing notes:
The tea leaves are pretty long so I tend to want to weigh my leaves rather than measure them. I’m not sure if measuring these leaves is as inconsistent as I am imagining it, but I just can’t imagine the leaves are going to fall into the tablespoon the same way every time you measure. I used 4g in 8oz of 190F water for 3/5/8mins.

Pass the Stash TTB 2
This is an interesting one. I don’t think I’ve had a minty black tea before. I like the mix of the keemun smokiness with the brightness of the mint. It’s ingredients include elderberries and lemongrass but I don’t get any of those flavors in my cup.

Another lovely, amazing, generous sample from Dexter in my quest to try more WP teas before i make my first purchase. I know this wasn’t the tea for dexter, so i wasn’t sure what to expect. Especially since i also know that my dear teafairy enjoys this one.

After brewing this one, and trying a few steepings, i’ve come to the conclusion that i don’t know how i feel about this one. On the one handle i enjoy the complexity and the “different” feel of this tea…on the other – it’s fairly expensive a tea, and not likely something that i could afford to drink often, so is it worth it? I have other teas that i ADORE that are less expensive and bring me great joy. I enjoyed the cedar notes in this, and i really do love the base than brendan uses. I think though, that i’d be better off to splurge on another tea for the price. that being said, i did enjoy this tea and i can see why others have fallen in love with it. It’s just not high enough on my list to warrant purchasing :) At least not often heh. Thanks again Dexter!!

dexter sent me this one as i really want to place an order with WP but when i built my cart it was several hundred $ lol Soooo dexter helped me out with a few samples from her cupboard of WP teas that were on my “want to try” list. I love this tea. I enjoyed multiple steepings of the sample dexter sent me and loved it. Oak, cocoa, vanilla..and a truly delicious base. I think my only “complaint” about this tea is the price :( It would for sure be a birthday sort of splurge tea for me – to be enjoyed. Thank you so much for sharing this with me dexter! delicious!

Evening sipdown; many white teas are actually quite high in caffeine but this one has never given me trouble sleeping even when consumed late. It remained consistent even after a few steeps, with a light pine and rosemary fragrance, and dried-grass sweetness. It’s something I’ll probably purchase again, I haven’t found anything else quite like it.

Meanwhile, I’ll be on a no-buy for November. Let’s see how it goes!

New tea from Whispering Pines, and 100th tasting note!

This tea is very pleasing to look at, coming in the form of little buds with silver down on them. Once brewed, the buds open up slightly. The aroma is, surprisingly, a lighter version of Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong, with musky pine and longan fruit sweetness. The taste is much more subtle and faintly sweet. It reminds me of a southern California garden in full sun with the fragrance of drying herbs, but not many flowers. Looking at the description later, rosemary was probably what I was thinking of, we have plenty of that around here! A very enjoyable light tea that I will experiment more with.

(This tea is now sold as Yabao on the website instead of Winter White Buds.)

This is an incredible Dancong, thanks Cheri for the sample :D

First steep had a huge amount of sandalwood, and some interesting strong cannabis notes. My first steep was a bit longer than it should have been. Very potent. Second and third steeps were still strongly sandalwood with some spice notes. 4 and 5 have developed some floral, citrus and tannins and still some spice. Crazy good dancong. It is still going strong. I wonder what steep 6 is going to bring…

Overall impression this tea gives is darkly warm :)

Interesting Keemun combination here. Mint is in the spotlight here from the start, and it leaves a fresh mouth feeling to finish. A bit of lemon/honey is present, though more subtle than the mint. Even more subtle is the berry flavor, but it is still definitely identifiable.

This tastes good but I’m not sure if I’d reorder it. I’ll decide during my next tasting and update then.

So, I ordered a sampler pack… and it came today. This smells pretty good, like malty chocolate. In the flavour I get more fruit, and bread… along with the cocoa. So pretty much it’s chocolate covered fruit, with plums, and some really good bread. Seems a little out of place in the Summer though, I think this is an Autumn morning tea.

I got another sample of this tea from another most generous Steepsterite! Thank you SO much! And this time I even brewed it properly, LOL.

Man, I have to be honest here…I didn’t WANT this one to live up to be hype. I didn’t WANT to fall in love! But alas, this tea is everything everyone says about it and more. Seriously ridiculously good. I had a couple of non-tea drinkers taste my cup, and they really thought there was some chocolate in there! Nope, just two insanely good black teas and some vanilla beans. sigh I combined steeps one and two in a hot-to-go mug. I got notes of cocoa, tart cherries, pastry, malt…even some powdered sugar notes. GAH! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO GOOD!!! Sigh. Expensive tea but worth it. I’m a convert! Maybe my fave black tea of all time now??? Ambrosia!

starts saving pennies

:)