Whispering Pines Tea Company

Sipdown! This is a really interesting tea, and I’ve never had another herbal like it. The fruit flavor alternately tastes like apples or berries, and it’s earthy and a little bit spicy from the cinnamon. It reminds me a little bit of baked apples, and it’s really comforting on cold days or days when I’m feeling off. I’d definitely get it again.

Okay, here is my official promise that I will not make any new tea for myself that contains caffeine tonight. I will be resteeping that dragonwell because I’m curious how it’ll hold up, but otherwise it’s all herbal/rooibos for me. I haven’t been sleeping well lately and caffeine at 10 pm can’t help (although I don’t think that’s the cause, I just don’t think it helps).

Dry, this smells woody, piney, and a little spicy. As it brews it smells like baked apples! Not what I expected at all. I overleafed this a bit to make sure I got everything in the cup. Considering what’s in it I’m shocked to report that it tastes a little like mulled apple cider! There is a piney flavor to it, but it really does remind me of cinnamon apples in some form.

ETA: As this cools it completely changes. Now that it’s room-temperature it’s piney, wintery, but still a touch appley. I’ve never had anything quite like it!

Not much to say about this one since it’s discontinued. But KallieBoo! sent this my way but it’s not my cup of tea. Maybe it wasn’t anyone elses’s either – hence the discontinued. but i’m glad i tried it :)

backlog from yesterday – thanks again to dexter for letting me try this one. On the whole, this wasn’t a bad cup of tea, but i’m glad that this is one that i don’t feel the need to order from WP. There was a bitterness there that i didn’t love. still not a bad cup..just not one i need to keep around.

Final Count yesterday: 114

thank you KallieBoo!

I didn’t have good luck with this tea today. There was something funny about the tea, but i’m not sure if the tea was contaminated or i just goofed it up. oh well. I’ll eventually get round to placing an order with WP and maybe ill try it again. thanks for sending this my way!

Sipdown!! (185)

I think I am definitely the majority but I am not loving this one. I am getting woodiness from the rooibos and a bit of smoke so the campfire is definitely present. Unfortunately, I am searching but can’t find my s’more. There might be a bit of malt from the black base but it is not the creamy milk chocolate my s’mores have and it is lacking the marshmallow sweetness. I am grateful that I did not need to order a full 2 oz as I surely would have been disappointed. You never know unless you try though so thank you MissB for giving me the opportunity to try this one. If nothing else, you satisfied my curiosity and saved me some money :)

Delicious. I treat this the same way I steep/drink my Longjing – Pour water at correct temp into a tall glass, leave buds/leaves in, drink until 1/3 left and then add more water. Repeat until flavour is gone. Sometimes I even mix the two together; there is no bitterness that I can taste when doing this.
By itself:
The aroma is full of sweet pine. It reminds me of Whispering Pine’s Sleeping Bear.
The taste is what you’d expect from a white tea: light, delicate and a very gentle aftertaste of honey.
The buds dance around the tall glass going up and down throughout out the session.

I knew I had to get a tea with warming spices to cope with the dead of winter…southern California winter that is. Of course this tea is the perfect counterpart to winter or even fall. The smell upon opening the packet reminded me a lot of pecan or pumpkin pie. And the taste is actually very similar. It is sweet and spicy and…warm. A little difficult to describe. Elderberry is really a great flavor, I’m surprised it doesn’t get as much publicity as all the other berries because it’s really something. Elderberry has a really delicate and earthy sweetness that makes blueberry look almost like an aggressive sweetness. All in all, buy this tea and you won’t be disappointed!

Here’s another new tea arriving early next week, now available at 10% off for pre-order! :)

About the Tea
Our spring harvest Jade Tieguanyin from Anxi, China is a beautiful oolong that has been carefully hand-processed from start to finish! After hand picking the leaves, the long process begins by firing in a wok, steaming, rolling, and steaming again. This whole process is then repeated up to ten times! Due to this skilled processing, our Jade Tieguanyin has an extremely aromatic bouquet with notes of butter, chestnuts, and lightly floral characteristics.

The taste is unrivaled in the world of Tieguanyin as the flavor opens up with an intoxicating sweet buttery body! Smooth, nutty notes combine with the buttery body as the sweet, oceanic scent of the pacific coastline wafts out of your cup. It’s hard to believe that such a beautiful fresh taste can come from these tiny jade-colored leaves. Infuses more than 5 times!

Best enjoyed with your worries left behind!

Notes
Buttery
Oceanic
Chestnuts
Gardenias

How to brew the perfect cup:
Steep 1 teaspoon of leaves
in 8 ounces of boiling water
for 2 minutes.

2nd infusion: 3 minutes
3rd infusion: 4 minutes

Ingredients
Oolong Tea

Caffeine Content
Medium-High

http://whisperingpinestea.com/jadetgy.html

Our Xin Yang Mao Jian is now available for pre-order at 10% off! It will be arriving early next week! :)

About the Tea
Xin Yang Mao Jian is a famous green tea produced in the Henan province of China. This tea is harvested in the early spring and is comprised of tiny, hand-twisted leaves. The leaves are so small that each ounce of Mao Jian has nearly 3,000 leaves! Mao Jian is harvested just before the monsoons, after long periods of fog, which leads to a very sweet, fresh flavor with notes of agave, citrus, and a lovely nuttiness. The aroma of Mao Jian is stunning, comparable to a summer morning walk through a deciduous forest! With a history dating back to around 800 BC, the processing of this tea has become absolutely perfected and will please any green tea lover. This is my favorite green tea!

Notes
Herbaceous
Agave
Citrus
Chestnut
Dark, Mossy Forest

How to brew the perfect cup:
Steep 1/2 tablespoon of leaves
in 8 ounces of 180ºF water
for 1 minute and 30 seconds.

2nd infusion: 2 minutes
3rd infusion: 3 minutes

Ingredients
Chinese Green Tea

Caffeine Content
Low

http://whisperingpinestea.com/maojian.html

This is absolutely lovely! Thank-you Brenden. :-D

I really like this tea. It’s earthy and woodsy and the vanilla goes with it perfectly. As with each of the Whispering Pines teas I’ve tried, it’s truly unique- and delicious!

Between now and mid October one of my favorite things to do is sit on my porch after dinner, dishes, and homework is done and have some tea. Unless it is a super stormy night (and sometimes even then) I love having this quiet time just for me.

Tonight I decided this tea was perfect to enjoy as I sit out here looking at the moon and listening to the train rumble by. I’m still loving the lemongrass and mint combination. It’s unique but comforting. I like.

This was my morning tea. It’s such a unique blend, and I love the creativity and thought that went into it (or if this was a moment of inspired genius I love that, too:)). The lemongrass, spearmint, pine smoke, and berry flavors combine into something amazing.

A great first cup of the day.

Still loving this one. It’s such a relaxing blend. I like how the lemongrass is used here. Too often lemongrass can overpower all the other flavors in a tea, but in this blend it’s a bright high note that complements the base tea and mint. Yum!

What a unique blend! It seems to hint at so many things and then pull them all together in a truly lovely tea. There’s a light lemon note, some sweetness, a touch of mint, and a bit of smoke. It’s easy to pick out each note, but it’s so much better when I turn my brain off and enjoy the blend of flavors. It does remind me of woods, rivers, and fresh air. In fact, it reminds me of Logan Canyon in Utah. A few times a year my sister and I would wake up early in the morning and hike Mile High Trail so we could watch the sunrise hit the canyon. It was amazing. Back then we brought along a thermos of coffee, but if I could go there now I’d bring this tea. It’d be perfect. Hmmm… I might need to start planning a road trip.

This is a really unique and tasty tea blend :)
The aroma is Amazing, the wonderful sweet clean sects of Vanilla and Saffron, best enjoyed with a long, slow sniff, Mmmmmm…
On the first sip of Port I was greeted with the wonderful sweet flavors of the Vanilla and Saffron that I had just been enjoying sniffs of and I was just lost, for a minute there all of my thoughts and others concerns kinda went out the window, I was just in a peaceful state of bliss.
The taste of the first steep was a perfect reflection of the aroma and just so good, it is kinda hard to describe. Second and third Steeps were even better and I was able to taste more of the Tea itself, nice and bold slightly malty, a nice solid tea that seems to be pleasantly “softened” by the taste of the Vanilla and Saffron, which is still so hard to describe.
I was able to get 6 nice infusions from this one with no problem at all, the flavors really held up well untill abut the 4th infusion but even then 5 and 6 were still quite tastey.
This Tea to me was awesome and Like I had said before Hard to Describe, I know exactly how it tastes to me but I hard a had time to put it in words to type but Heres the best I could come up with.
Have you ever been out walking or on a hike somewhere in the woods or wilderness? When You are out hiking like that and you come near water like a lake or a pond or something most people can tell that water is near, I dunno something in the air changes the smell and feel and closer you get to water the stronger it is(it’s a sensation you can taste, feel and smell, If you are not much on the outdoors you may have no clue what I’m talking about, Sorry) Anyways, That is kinda what saffron or safflower even is like to me, very nice clean. It tastes like this clean Aroma of water with soft sweet Vanilla swirled with malty, roasty almost woody goodness. It is just awesome.
Insipred by Tucker Lake, I’ve never been there But I can totally get why a Lake would be the inspiration for this Tea because really My very first thought on my first sip was the thought of feeling a nearby Lake.

I’m not liking this one quite as much as I did when I first tasted it. It’s pretty good, but it’s lacking the sweetness I like in a green tea, and the liquor seems to be a darker, more yellow color this time. Maybe it was the different steeping parameters? My palate might also be off, because I just burnt some white sage in my house…Not adjusting the rating yet.
ETA: Yup. As my nostrils recover from the sage smoke, this is tasting just as good as I remember it!

This is a really nice tea. The picture on the Whispering Pines website makes the tea look like a yellowish color, but the leaves are in actuality a dark, fresh green color. The aroma and flavor is mild but very pleasing and fresh. You’ll notice my emphasis on “fresh”. I often find that green teas taste a bit sour/past their prime, but this was wonderful and sweet.

Okay, for all of you that have ordered this tea in the past and loved it, please beware…you may not want to read this for the sake of your wallets.

Now shipping with Grade A Madagascar vanilla beans. The level of depth and richness in this is beyond words…but I tried :)
-
Pure decadence, this black tea blend is packed full of deep creamy cocoa notes! My goal for this tea was to bring the ice cream shop on Mackinac Island into your cup! I began with North Winds – our black tea with dessert notes inspired by the island’s famous fudge. The next step was to seek out the highest quality vanilla beans in the world, hand chop them and blend them into the base tea. Blended with a careful hand and the utmost respect for letting all of the flavors shine, this tea exceeds all expectations!

Golden Orchid carries a rich and exceedingly smooth body with a perfectly balanced flavor profile. Unlike many other vanilla black teas, our base tea shines through the vanilla, creating a mouthwatering synthesis of bold and smooth dessert notes. While the vanilla is noticible by the trained palette, it does more than just add the depth of vanilla notes. Our premium (grade A) vanilla beans sourced from the island of Madagascar accentuate the deep fudge and cocoa notes of the base tea as well as add a thick creamy aspect to the tea, reminiscent of masterfully-crafted dark chocolate. The fruity notes of the tea are ever present, too, with light notes of plum and a mouthwatering layer of dark-chocolate covered Michigan cherries! This tea extends far past the last drop, with the flavor of melted chocolate and sweet vanilla lingering for hours. We recommend enjoying Golden Orchid with shortbread cookies or breakfast pastry’s for the ultimate experience. Click here for our gluten-free shortbread recipe!

Over time, the tea will absorb the vanilla notes and smooth out. We recommend drinking this tea once or twice a week to taste the way it transforms over time. Also note that mixing up the tea prior to scooping out your desired amount of leaf is recommended due to the tendency of the vanilla beans to sink to the bottom of the bag. Enjoy!

Notes
Fudge
Dark Chocolate
Dried Cherries
Vanilla
Pluot
Honey
Malt

About the Tea
Pure decadence, this black tea blend is packed full of heady vanilla and creamy cocoa notes! My goal for this tea was to bring the ice cream shop on Mackinac Island into your cup! I began with North Winds – our black tea with dessert notes inspired by the island’s famous fudge. The next step was to add freshly chopped organic vanilla beans from the vanilla orchid to the tea and allow it to cure. Over time, the tea will absorb the vanilla notes and become a much smoother blend. Once finished, we have the final product — a purely blissful black tea blend with the most beautiful vanilla and chocolate notes!

Notes
Vanilla
Cocoa
Apricot
Honey
Malt

How to brew the perfect cup:
Steep 1/2 tablespoon of leaves
in 8 ounces of boiling water
for 3 minutes.

2nd infusion: 5 minutes
3rd infusion: 8 minutes

Ingredients
Black Tea
Organic Vanilla Beans

Caffeine Content
High

http://whisperingpinestea.com/golden-orchid.html

Thank you Brenden for this sample tea!

This morning while waiting for my teapot water to boil…I turned on the weather report just as Al Roker pronounced “49 States are experiencing below normal cold weather and most are within the Arctic Blast of sub-zero temperatures”.

All I can say is ‘I empathize with all of you…but it has been pretty good here in the Rocky’s’…business as usual so far. One day of snow. You get the WET stuff and WIND. We don’t. It’s dry.

If you have some of Brenden’s Elder Grove tea to keep you company, you’re in luck!

Sunday, I was in the teashop talking to Maggie. For anyone who’s been keeping up with the characters at my local shop (Happy Lucky’s) she’s new…and so is Rachel. (The shop keeps growing in popularity)

Maggie lived in Taiwan and had a tea business. It’s handy having a person around who can read the Chinese Labels that come into the shop. (And some that I bring in too)

Anyway, we were talking about how the Chinese put all sorts of things into tea. Maggie goes to a certain shop close to Denver for special plums to add to tea. I mentioned how Brenden puts pine needles and cedar chips into his blends to remember the spirit of woody places he loves. Other tea vendors use local rice for genmaicha and some are experimenting with aging puer in empty wine and bourbon barrels.

I love the creative energy in our emerging North American tea culture!

Tea houses, philanthropy, love of the natural world and support of community. That’s the most exciting part.

This tea…Elder Grove is smooth.

I let it steep really long and it didn’t become sour but stayed smooth.

I didn’t taste the Holy Basil, but the blend was like a mild chai with good body, smooth elderberry…just the way I like it. Sometimes elderberry can taste like hibiscus and sour…this doesn’t taste that way.

I added a little honey…a perfect compliment!

The more Whispering Pines Tea’s I’ve tasted recently, the more I appreciate Brenden’s hard work in reformulating his tea stock into blends that are unique. They tell a story and represent him and the countryside he loves. His blending skill has matured and I applaud him! Those who learn do well and he’s one to keep watching!

If you haven’t wandered through his tea’s lately, I recommend this and the Evergreen Spice for Winter. Try his new tea’s!

If you’re snowed in and have never watched ‘Foyles War’ on Netflix…it’s a fine series. ‘Call the Midwife’ is another good one. ‘Foyles’…for both men and women. Got the tip first from Joe at the teashop and he’s 29.

Stay warm my friends!