Whispering Pines Tea Company

The Inspiration
Tucker Lake is an inland lake in Glen Arbor, Michigan. In the summertime, a thin layer of fog forms around the lake during the night. Each sunrise brings a light breeze to the lake, pushing the fog northward. If you row out to just the right spot and wait for the sunrise, the breeze pushes the fog right into your canoe. There is a freshness to this fog that defies all explanation. Through the trees to the south of the lake and over Dunns Farm Road, the essence of this place becomes captured in the fog. The journey begins at a small dock across the road at Fisher Lake where the rustic scent of old wooden boats and crystal clear water billows into the fog. Warm and inviting, the fog pushes through the narrow stream connecting the lakes, rolling over summer trilliums and whispering through the pine trees, becoming as sweet and warm as everything it touches. When the sun rises, the fog warms, energizes, and just before disappearing, it reaches your canoe. The last breath of fog is vanilla-sweet and saffron-warm with an energy I can not even begin to describe. As the sun rises above the trees and the bald eagles soar the skies above, you wonder why you’d ever leave.

Port was inspired by this unexplainable scent and moment in time. I wanted to create the best blend I could, something to match one of my most beautiful memories. The base of this tea is a wild-picked black tea from Dehong, China, carrying intensely complex notes of sugarcane, eucalyptus, and barley over a deep rustic body. I tried all of our usual herbs, spices, and flowers, but nothing came close to matching the freshness of this memory, so I took the plunge and used the two ingredients that I knew would bring me back to Tucker Lake – organic madagasgar vanilla beans and spanish saffron. The result was a more perfect incarnation than I could have ever imagined. Port has the most beautiful vanilla notes, a rustic base tea, perfect saffron warmth, and is rounded out with the evergreen sweetness of roasted red cedar tips.

I can proudly say that this is my greatest achievement!

Notes
Vanilla
Saffron
Evergreen
Cedar
Sugarcane
Eucalyptus
Barley
Summer

How to brew the perfect cup:
Steep 1 tablespoon of leaves
in 8 ounces of 200ºF water
for 2 minutes.

2nd infusion: 3 minutes
3rd infusion: 4 minutes
4th infusion: 6 minutes
5th infusion: 8 minutes
6th infusion: 10 minutes

Ingredients
Black Tea
Roasted Red Cedar Tips
Organic Madagasgar Vanilla Beans
Spanish Saffron

Caffeine Content
High

http://whisperingpinestea.com/port.html

I had this tea last night after getting an email from Whispering Pines saying that my order has shipped and is on its way to me. And what did I order? Why 4 ounces of this tea, of course! I was so excited when Brenden said he would sell discontinued blends as long as at least four ounces is purchased (and as long as he has the ingredients). It’s totally worth it to not have to say goodbye to a favorite tea, in my opinion! Especially a tea that taste just like mint chocolate chip and the only ingredients are tea and organic mint. Yay!

P.S. I also bought four ounces of the December blend because it’s also fantastic. Thanks, Brenden, for the awesome customer service.

So apparently I’m in a mint mood tonight. Fortunately I have some of this left which makes me happy because this is such a good tea. Love the dark chocolate note from the tea and the amount of mint in the blend. It’s near perfect and absolutely delicious. I have enough leaf left for one more cup and then this one will be gone.

Sometimes my “Thou Shalt Not Hoard Tea” mantra is difficult to practice. I really, really like this tea, and now that it’s discontinued I’ve been holding it instead of drinking it. Silly, but true. This is much, much more enjoyable in my cup than sitting on the shelf, so I made myself a nice strong cup and enjoyed. It’s a great mix of clean, bright mint and the base tea which is full of chocolate notes. It’s a spot on mint chocolate chip flavor. Delicious.

The dark chocolaty notes in this tea is so good, and combined with the mint it’s gooooood. Because I can I added cream and sugar, and I’ve enjoyed every single sip. This tea seems almost too simple on the surface (tea and mint!), but it’s great and a good example of how sometimes the simplest things are the best.

I just had a late lunch with a friend and am trying to ease back into work. This tea is making that much easier by acting as my dessert and afternoon cuppa. The mint is soothing and invigorating, and the Fujian tea has great dark chocolate notes. The combination, along with a little sugar and cream, is nothing short of sublime.

All I want to do is curl up and take a nap, but I have a lot of things I want to accomplish today, so I made myself a cup of this instead. It’s so delightfully yummy. The caffeine is sure to give me a boost, but the mint is also really invigorating. And the dark chocolate note… yum. Now, to get back to ripping up the flooring in my dining room….

This tea is exactly what it says it is, mint and chocolate. The fact that the chocolate flavor comes from the tea and nothing else is awesome. Love it. It has become my go-to dessert tea, but sadly I used the last of my leaf tonight. Thankfully I have plenty Mint Chocolate Chai to help ease my pain. :)

Tea break! I was needing something decadent, and this chocolate-y minty goodness fit the bill. Because I was being decadent I added some sugar and cream. The result is a tea that reminds me so much of Thin Mint cookies. There is the dark chocolate note followed by a kick of mint. It’s nice to have a tea that satisfies my sweet tooth enough to keep me away from the junk food that’s lurking in my pantry. ;-)

So I told myself that I’m only allowed to drink teas out of the traveling tea box today because I want to get it in the mail on Friday, and I still have a bunch of teas I’d like to try. I failed. I wanted to sit on my porch and watch the rain, and I wanted a tea that I knew I would enjoy while I was out there. After a quick look through my stash I chose this one. I love the dark chocolate notes, and the mint is really good. It was a lovely relaxing moment in my otherwise chaotic day.

Yum. This is exactly the chocolaty minty treat I wanted today. So glad I have this in my cupboard.

Backlogging.

Sipping on a cup of minty chocolate goodness with zero guilt is sometimes all a girl needs to be happy. I love that the great dark chocolate flavor comes from the tea instead of an artificial flavoring, and I love the amount of peppermint used in the blend. It’s a great mix.

Whispering Pines could well be the death of my pocketbook. Now that I’ve tried a few of their teas I want to order everything they’ve got. I’ve enjoyed all the teas I’ve tried from them, and the mint chocolate chip is no exception.

This was a sample that was added to my order, and I’m so glad it was. There’s a great mint flavor with a dark chocolate note that is steady through the sip. Usually if/when I taste chocolate it’s at the end of the sip, so I really enjoyed having it present from start to finish. The tea is also very smooth, and while it’s not overly sweet the mint adds enough sweetness that I didn’t feel the need to add sugar to my cup. Plus, it resteeps very well. I’ve steeped the leaves three times now, and the flavor has been consistent with each cup. Win!

This one needs to always be in my cupboard.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

I’m one of those people who spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day by myself. I’m probably not the only one…and after years and years, I don’t feel sorry for myself about it.

There was a time when I was forced to be around New Years events that I didn’t want to be around…and I ended up afraid of what could happen to me at the hand of an abusive person.

I’m so thankful in my present life to be safe!

Tonight I put on good music, made some dip and crackers…had a really good dinner too. Worked on my Pinterest Boards.

Now, here we are together…you, my friends on Steepster.

It’s just us with some tea.

If you’re alone like me…make some tea and I’ll tell you how this tea made me feel…how it took me back to another December.

The Story:
Silicon Valley is a new title for the Valley I grew up in.
Once it was known as the ‘Prune Capitol of the World’ not the center of technology.
On one side of the Valley are the small Coast Range Mountains and then the Pacific Ocean.
At Christmas, my children Aaron, Annalisa and I would bundle up and head up narrow Black Road…winding our way through Ponderosa Pine and Redwood Forests..up, up through mountain mists until we reached our favorite tree farm.

The dirt entry off the paved road was perched above the tree farm. As we looked below us, we could see a low ranch house and a big rustic woodshed decorated with Christmas lights, candy canes and stars. A woodfire billowed sweet smelling smoke into the cold, damp air. A hidden machine blew bubbles like snow high into the sky. It was magical!

When we arrived a rotund, aproned Mrs.Claus greated us with laughter, hot cider and ginger cookies…then gave us instructions on how to cut our tree to protect the trunk for regrowth.

We tumbled laughing and yelling through rows and rows of fragrant trees, letting the branches swipe across our faces…rushing off here and there to be first to find the perfect tree.

Such delightful joy!

I often think that this was one of those moments that God allowed me to be a child…as it does now in the retelling of the story.

The Tea:
When I prepared this tea…the use of real Ponderosa Pine with ‘mild’ Yabao in the blend, transported me back those 30 years.
I could smell the sweet, fresh cut fir tree and the sap. It’s a sweet smell. Then, brown sugar, graham cracker…nutmeg and ginger.

Spot-on this tea takes me deep into the WINTER FOREST.

I’m a lover of raw innovation…bold creativity and high standards in blends. No spay-tan flavors to make-a-buck pseudo-tea for me.

One of the memories that lasts throughout your life is scent and taste. Cool isn’t it. All the tea will associate with places and people…woods and trees, love and celebrations.

Evergreen Spice allowed me to become myself 30 years ago with my young children in the Coastal Mountains cutting down a Christmas Tree with the scent of Redwoods and Pine. Spiced Cider and cookies…

How glorious is that!

Blessed 2014 to you all my beloved friends!

A note: Not a critic of real sugar here but I have a critical note for once below:
(No artificial sweetener…none…nada…it changes the yabao into soap so don’t please.)

(Yikes this is review 666 on New Years Eve…good thing that I have no fear! It’s funny!)

Backlog.
My first cup after receiving my order I was a little out of it and ended up seriously overleafing — like double! Managed to get through 1/2 of the crazy strong cup before I realized my error and added some more water.

Next couple times I paid more attention to what I was doing, and I have to say I still really like this tea. It’s great for when my throat feels clogged or I start getting the sniffles.

Yay, it’s here! After I used all of my sample from MissB I felt better and forgot to order this. Fast-forward a couple weeks and I’m SICK big time. I’ve been bombarding this stupid cold with everything I can get my hands on, so I was glad to see that this shipped out the morning after I ordered it. Hopefully it will help me kick what’s left of this sickness and prevent any more for the rest of winter!

Finished off my sample this morning, and I swear this stuff is working. Maybe it’s just a placebo effect, but I usually I get full-blown sickness pretty quickly after the first signs, and now it’s been an entire day and I feel better than when I drank this last night! Not worse, not even the same… better! I let it steep a little longer this time (8 min.) to try to get a little more of the medicinal goodness. I think this one’s going to be a winter staple.

One more sample from MissB (there’s a lot of them!)
My throat started feeling a little weird yesterday, not bad, just not normal. Then out of nowhere I got a nosebleed last night, and more of a sore throat today… so as I surveyed the pile of samples to choose my tea for tonight, I knew I had to give this one a try. Normally I catch everything that’s going around, so I’m really hoping this will fight off the germs and keep me well. The good news is it doesn’t taste bad! I wasn’t sure what to expect since it’s more of a medicinal tea, and I’m not typically a big fan of ginger, but surprisingly I enjoyed this. Of course I’ll stick with sweeter, yummier teas most of the time, but if this helps me avoid getting sick I’ll definitely stock up!

Additional notes: Finishing up this one! This is better than I remember. The rooibos gives it a nice cedar flavor to go with the subtle smoke and the sweetness from the marshmallow root. The cinnamon is a nice addition. Thanks again Veronica for sharing this one a while ago!

7/10 sipdowns before I get to 1,500 tasting notes! Looking over my tasting notes, I realize I overuse the exclamation point – this is just to show my enthusiasm for tea. :D

Thank you SO much Veronica! I get to try this one! I’ve been known to eat the occasional microwave s’more for breakfast, so there you go. The steeping instructions say three teaspoons (one tablespoon)! Wow! My sample has four teaspoons, so I went with two teaspoons for this steeping session, so I’d have enough for another cup later on.

Steep #1 // just boiled // 4 min
This is lovely and delicious, but I wouldn’t call it S’mores. It has a nice sweet smokiness, which is the strongest note. There is a hint of chocolate from the black tea, as some Fujian black teas have, but I think other tea drinkers notice that more than I do. I wish there was MORE mallow root here, as I wish there were more teas that used it anyway. But the flavor is sweet and smoky.

Steep #2 // just boiled // 7 min
This cup is nice but even less like S’mores. Maybe it’s my fault for not using enough leaves. I like that it’s a rustic, actual campfire blend that could translate to S’mores (without all the fake ingredients that Whispering Pines doesn’t use). I always wanted a smoky S’mores though, and this is certainly perfect on the sweet smokiness level. I appreciate Whispering Pines’ blending skills… I certainly couldn’t do it! Oh it is just making me miss autumn… I’m sick of winter and it’s not even January yet. Tea makes it a little better.

Tea #35 from the Here’s Hoping TTB

It’s been awhile since I’ve ordered from Whispering Pines, but I’ve loved a lot of what I have sampled so far. A lot of the teas remind me of being outdoors, something that I don’t get to do as much when we have two feet of snow on the ground and subzero temperatures. As I was riffling through the TTB I immediately noticed this tea, it was particularly eye-catching, the dark elderberries contrasting with the bright orange color of the safflower. Somehow it ended up getting shuffled to the bottom of my “want to try” pile, so I’m just not getting to it. It has a real earthy taste to it from the safflowers, followed up by the tangy sweet/tart flavors of the elderberries. Such a lovely cup of tea, I’m glad I got to try it.

Even though it’s not cold I’ve felt chilled all night. I’m not sure if it’s the weather, ( it’s rainy and dreary here, and it looks like it’s going to stick around for a few days) or if I’m getting sick. Either way this tea is comforting. It’s silky smooth with the mint offering a brightness followed by a bit of richness and depth in the smokey note.

Yeah, I needed this tonight. Good stuff.