Whispering Pines Tea Company

This is a delicious silver needle.
The aroma is sweet to me like honeysuckle, when the water hits it the aroma fill the air with sweetness :)
The flavor delicate but tasty with sweet notes of honeysuckle and hay with a slightly spicy woody almost peppery note with a faint familiar aftertaste that I cant quite place on the first steeping.
On the second steep it was still delicate but not as much as the first Sweet with a little more hay notes this time and the woody note is a little stronger with the same lingering aftertaste.
Third steep is a little delicate again with hay notes still and the honeysuckle notes changed more into just a sweet honey type note kinda like clover honey the woody peppery note is more like sandalwood now and the aftertaste I’ve decided is like Basil as stated in the description.
Fourth steep was weak but still quite drinkable but its probably best to stop at three.
The wet leafe looks like little string beans lol

Me and this tea, we’re going to have a complicated relationship. The firs time I had it, I thought, oh no, it smells like one of those black teas, those ones that smell heavy and manly and not for me. But then, it tasted OK. not fantastic, but I finished the cup while watching an episode of Boy Meets World last night (did I tell you how much I LOVE that show? Im watching the whole series getting ready for the new Girl meets World.).

I wanted to try it again before writing a note so here I am again with the tea. This time I really like it. Remember what I said in my last note about being fickle about my black teas and not knowing if I like them for a while? I am listening to the Beatles and maybe ’cause this music always puts me in a good mood, the tea just tastes better? strange how environment can have such an effect like that.

The tea smells fruity, woody, complex, these are all good traits normally, but often not good for me. The flavor, this particular time around, invokes warm and cozy feelings. Its like teatime Gemütlichkeit (if I might reference some Biedermeier literature :p)

By the way, Im done with undergrad school forever now. finally! finished my very last undergrad paper last night. I am three credits short of 3 separate degrees and Im finally going to graduate school. finally! woohoo!

Tea of the morning. I felt like it had been a long time since I’d last had this one, but apparently it’s only been a few weeks. That just reinforces how much I love this tea. Not having it in my cup for almost is month is way too long. To make up for the time we spent apart I’ve already had three cups of this lovely today. I love the baked bread and molasses notes as well as the salted caramel note at the end of the sip. The resteep was a bit more malty and earthy, but the other flavors continued to be present as well. Really, really enjoyable.

This is just a cup of yum.

Tea of the morning. What else can I say about one of my favorite teas that I haven’t said before? This tea is just a joy from beginning to end. The layers of flavor are wonderful, but I have to say that the salted caramel note at the end of the sip gets me every time. It’s delightful.

I love having this tea in my cupboard. It’s so good. There are layers and layers of flavor from stone fruit to malt to tobacco to berries to molasses to floral to salted caramel. It’s a tea I enjoy being able to sip and savor because there’s so much to enjoy inside one little cup. Thankfully it resteeps well because I’ll always want another cup of this.

I like the strength of the malt note in this tea. It’s significant, but it also helps to highlight the cocoa and sweet potato notes. And then there is the salted caramel note at the end of the sip which I absolutely enjoy. This is a nice tea to wake up with.

I’m thinking this tea will pair well with Christmas cookies. With any luck I’ll get to find out in the next few days. :)

My mid-afternoon pick-me-up. This tea never fails to impress me. I think this might be a life long love affair.

This has been in my cup all day. There’s the flavor of good crusty bread along with a squash-like note mixed with honey. The end of the sip is all salted caramel. Mercy all, I do love this tea.

My order from Whispering Pines arrived today, and I’m happy to have this one back in my cupboard and my cup. It’s biscuity with notes of squash, malt, honey, stone fruit and salted caramel. Delicious!

Used my last bit of this this morning. As far as I’m concerned this is the Mary Poppins of tea – practically perfect in every way. It’s delicious as always, perfect as a breakfast tea, and resteeps beautifully. I’ll definitely order this one again (and again and again).

Tea of the morning. I have to say this is one of my favorite teas. There’s notes of stone fruit and good crusty bread at first, and then it morphs into a salted caramel flavor at the end of the sip. What’s not to love?

I’m running really low on this one, so a visit to the WPT site will be in order very soon.

It’s heading towards noon, and this is my first tea of the day. Must. Have. Tea. I didn’t even need to think about which tea I wanted because this is one of my no fail/I-will-always-love-it teas. Today there are lots of floral and honey notes along with a good biscuity note and… molasses?. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted molasses in this tea before, but it’s yummy. I love how the flavors in this tea can morph from one steeping to the next, but it’s always delicious.

Back to work… right after the next steep….

Goodness, this is an excellent tea. It’s biscuity with deep cocoa notes. There’s also a nuttiness and a smooth, sweet caramel finish. I lowered my water temp to 205° F, and it kept the tea from having any astringency. This is probably the way I’ll prepare this one from now on. It really is delicious. I think I fall in love with this tea a bit more each time I drink it.

I’m bumping my rating up to 100. This is a tea I adore.

(previous rating 98)

Tea of the morning. This tea is insanely good. Today there is malt followed by a sweetness – kind of a non specific frutiness – and then salted caramel at the finish. So. Very. Yum. After I get my youngest to school I’ll resteep it. One thing I like about this tea is the flavor profile changes ever so slightly from cup to cup, so tasting it is always interesting.

Oh, this is good. Really good. There is a definite salted caramel flavor that I’m loving. There is also a rich fruity note that floats around between sips. It lends a lot of depth and sweetness to the tea. I keep sipping and trying to place the flavor, but I can’t quite put my finger on it (ok, I cheated and looked at the tea description – caramelized plum. Yes.). I keep sipping and trying to think of how best to describe this, but all I’m coming up with is Wow. Yum. Amazing.

This one is a keeper.

It would be a good idea if I stopped using cups that are too big without adjusting the serving size of the leaf. It really makes a difference to follow directions. Often, I pull out any random sized cup and put in the same amount of leaf regardless. This tea is still pretty good when under leafed, though. It gets a fruity note to it that I don’t detect otherwise. However, the chocolate and malty notes are only there when I use more leaf.

I am raising the rating on this tea because Ive had it several times now and can safely say that it is a favorite.

I was able to just barely get three cups of tea out of this sample that I got. the first two times, I used about 10 ounces of water with 1.5 tsp of leaves. This time, I didn’t have quite enough leaf for 1.5 tsp, so I used an 8oz cup (which is technically what I should have been using to follow the instructions perfectly, but anyway. . .)

This time around, I detected very strong chocolate notes that I hadn’t before. The proportion of tea to water shouldn’t have been so different (since I used less of both) but maybe it was.

Ill have to get some more of this tea to experiment with it. I think I could end up liking it quite a bit. I don’t know why I have such a hard time making my mind up about black teas (and it really is just black teas that provide such a dilemma). shrug

This tea was included as a sample with my order. I like it better than the black tea that I did order (go figure :p).

This is maybe not may favorite black tea, but its pretty good. I was afraid it would have too much of a smokey or woody flavor (I can’t always differentiate between these flavors). I don’t like either of these and I am so sensitive to them that I can even detect them when no one else can. yay me (note sarcasm). This tea does hint at it, but the blend as a whole comes together nicely. Its bold and malty which is what I like best in a black tea. Usually, with black teas that I seem to like alright at first, I need to try them several times to decide that i either really like them or really don’t (you’d think I’d at least figure out the latter the first time around, lol). So ill probably be writing an updated note for this one in the near future.

I love this white tea so much! I’ve been trying not to drink it too often because I can’t afford to buy too much tea these days :(

I got some Whispering pines tea for my father for Father’s day. My parents don’t live near by anymore, so I don’t get to be there when he tries them. so sad!

Other sad news is that it looks like I might have to move to Boulder, CO without my pets and husband temporarily. We are trying to sell our current house and can’t make an offer on a new one until this one is under contract at least. I need to be in Boulder or somewhere not too far from there by Aug. 18th. I really don’t want to have to go by myself. I need some super good luck with the house sale and purchase!

I haven’t had any ‘real’ tea in my cupboard for a while. I have some Bamboo leaf tea blends that I really like, but I was starting to miss real tea. Especially a really good white tea.

When my package from Whispering Pines arrived yesterday, I put on my happy face and opened it right away. Yay for new tea! But when I saw the little handwritten note with my name spelled wrong, I made a sad face. (′︿‵｡) Everyone is always trying to run off with my second ‘e’ lol

Fortunately, the big fluffy leaves of this white tea improved my mood again. I love big fluffy white tea leaves! And even more so when they brew into a tasty tea as these do. This is now my favorite white tea. It is similar to an old favorite I used to get from elsewhere, but recent batches of that one have been disappointing. I’ll have to hope that this one will be available for a while so that I can stock up (but hard to do while Im on a budget!).

The flavor is pleasantly complex. I pick up the honeydew and Eucalyptus honey notes for sure. The rest I can’t describe so precisely, but it’s all yummy.

Alas my vacation is over and I have to go back to work today :( I’m fortifying myself with my favorite cup of yummy vanilla fudgy comfort. I have a bed full of dogs and this tea and it’s gonna be hard to get up and get ready this morning. Maybe if I keep drinking this….

So happy to be home. Because the GO lives here. nomnomnomnom

I am so happy that I have this tea at this moment.

I was trying to decide what to drink first this morning. TeaFairy said, “when in doubt GO.” As is usual – she was so right.