Whispering Pines Tea Company

Generously provided as a sample by WP many moons ago, I only cracked open this tea in the last little while. There’s somewhat of an evident flavour fade, but the chocolate and malt notes are still distinct. There’s also a bit of honey, although it’s more washed out.

I won’t rate this because of the age, even though the tea is still pretty fine albeit not particularly exciting (to my palate anyways). I’m still in a bored phase when it concerns chocolatey Chinese black teas.

So I am sick, in a play so wildy busy, in my busiest period of the working year, it’s pouring rain, and over the weekend the nice young man I had been seeing and I split. (A nice split, no one angry. Our lives are just in very different places. I wish him all the best, and am in no way angry, I’m just sad and I miss him.)
So nice tea with a spoonful of honey today. I am going to be a nice to myself as possible.

Oh Frabjous day!
The bad work situation is almost 100% resolved, and what we do have done means that probably the tempers at play will go down. And it is now the weekend!
I’m afraid, today, the weather is pouring, a situation I really like, but that I need to get up and go to my side hustle, rather than staying snug and warm in bed, listening to the storm outside.
Ah well. I shall do my work, then come back and sit with tea and books and my knitting and listen to the rain.
I am afraid to say that this is the last cup of this particular pouch of the Jabberwocky. Drat it all! I swear I’m not drinking all this tea? Maybe tea goblins come in and sip it down while I’m not looking?

Om. Nom.
I was so happy to grab some of this from Whispering Pines. It is every bit as lovely as I remember, subtle and flavorful and just so, so lovely.
Nom!

I have become some sort of sipdown obsessed machine. A machine I tell you! I am so eager to see the cupboard shrink!
The bad part of this is that I am finishing off teas I really quite like, and that means I shall soon be daunted by a wall of teas I feel meh about, and that’s the circumstance that leads to additional tea purchases.
Well, I’ve decided that no new teas until I sip down to 50 teas in the cupboard. I can do this!
This is a long way of saying that this was my last cup of this lovely blend for a while. The Jabberwocy was a lovely addition to my cupboard, and I will probably bring it back at some point. Its got a wonderfully rich and complex flavor.
And now its gone.
Sipdown!

Why does the perfect stay inside and drink tea and write and knit weather only happen on work days? Why?! Oh well.
My morning pot, and my goodness but this is a lovely black tea. Its so flavorful, but without any flavorings in it.
Ahh, very nice to wake me up on this snuggly morning.

And I have a cold. Bleh.
Its Friday, though, so I’m starting off with this, which is a really lovely, flavorful tea. I am constantly surprised there are no additional flavors in it, its just so rich!
A nice start to my cold day.

Brew of my morning!
This is one very flavorful tea. It keeps surprising me with new dashes of flavor that I hadn’t noticed before. Sometimes its a bit sweet, then theres a touch of something savory, even spicy!
This is all very lovely, especially for a flavored tea drinker, such as myself. Its good to know that dept and complexity lurk in black teas as well has their flavored counterparts. It inspires me to try more!

Oh ho, this is just plain nice.
I mean this as the highest compliment. Its a tea that has no bells or whistles (and normally I am the head of the bells and whistles section of the orchestra), and yet manages to be special, have presence, and just be so gosh darned nice.
Pleasant, smooth, flavorful without becoming overwhelming or intense at any point, this is just a good time in a cup.
As this is the first thing I’ve tried from Whispering Pines, I must say I am excited for things to come, and more tea to try.

Another sample Brenden gifted to me during our tea session. I put 8g of this into my 100ml gaiwan.

I didn’t get much scent from the dry leaf. I rinsed the dry leaf chunks for about 5 seconds. I first detected a camphor type of scent. As I was sniffing that and trying to really make sure that is what it was, a brown sugar note hit my nose. Whoa. That was not what I expected based on the original scent I was getting. Very interesting.

1st steep, 10 seconds. The leaf scent went to the fermentation side after this steep. But the liquid has a sweet mineral mushroom scent. The first sip or two left me with the impression of smooth, slightly sweet, slightly creamy, and a mineral-like note. Just a hint, though. The color of this infusion is like a bronzed orange. Wow, yeah, as I drink it there is this caramelized brown sugar scent that wafts up. It isn’t exactly in the flavor but the scent is there.

2nd steep, 10 seconds. The scent of the leaf here is more brown sugar sweet. The shou chunks broke up and turned this steep liquor into a much darker color. Cola-like. The scent of the liquid has more of a typical shou character. Earthy. And the flavor gives off a bitterness on the back of the tongue. Maybe I steeped it too long for the leaves breaking up but wow this stuff is all over the place. Perhaps one of the more complex shou’s I’ve had in those terms. I do hope the bitterness goes away in further steeps as it is not an aspect I enjoy. It is not completely overwhelming but certainly makes itself known on the back end.

3rd steep, 10 seconds. I had to take about an hour break here but I’m holding at ten seconds in order to take care of the bitterness. While it is still there it is less pronounced. A bit smoother.

4th steep, 15 seconds. Ok, I feel better about this steep. We are back to a smooth creamy shou flavor. Very drinkable again. Also, excuse the fall off in detail of reviews. It has been a total of 3 hours since I’ve began drinking this. Life happened. Electrician stopped by and did some work. Kids wanted me to push them on the swing set. Dinner needed to be started. So, forgive the lack of detail. It started out so strong, too!

5th steep, 20 seconds. This is settling in to a nice session. I have to end the review here though.

Overall this comes in as a nice shou. The bitterness throws one off a bit in the first few steeps but after that it settles down and becomes fairly dependable.

It’s 3am and my back pain has been keeping me awake. Despite painkillers and my heating pad I just can’t sleep and I need liquid comfort. I dragged myself out of bed and to my little tea making station in the bathroom(yeah it sounds weird but I don’t like to go downstairs at night, so I keep a few select teas and a cheapy electric kettle in my bathroom.)

I can’t really write a decent review because I’m way out of it but this is exactly what it needs to be tonight. Liquid comfort. It’s smooth and rich. And teay(yes spellcheck that is what I meant to type). See what I mean about being out of it?

Sometimes this tea is good to sip but it also stands up to being gulped. It seems like not a lot of teas are truly lovely when being gulped down by the mouthful but The Jabberwocky doesn’t lose it’s charm.

Ok, my cup is almost empty so I should try and close my eyes again. I am feeling a bit better. Vicodin or tea? Probably both.

The first sample I’m trying from the puerh plus TTB.

1st off if this box has taught be anything it’s that I can’t say no to a tea that smells like chocolate. I grabbed samples of all three teas where I whiffed some cocaoy goodness. This being the only tea that contained actual cocoa was unsurprisingly the best smelling of all of them. So much so that when I added hot water the room started to smell like I was making brownies.

This tea brings out all the cocoa and the puerh adds a good dark base that keeps it from tasting watery. I brewed this in a gaiwan and through 10 steeps the nibs were present in every cup from the first light colored one to the later dark cups. The aroma cannot be talked about only experienced. The puerh did not get in the way of the chocolate which might happen with western style brewing. I may have ate all the nibs out of the tea when I was finished.

One note with this tea. It contains cocoa butter in the nibs which will slowly come out of the tea leaving a slight sheen on the top. Because of this you’ll want to make sure to use glazed teaware and give everything a good wash afterwards to keep from contaminating your next tea.

This is really a tie-in review to my other Whispering Pines black tea reviews. I found the black tea base of this tea to be, similar to the ailaoshan black, a bit on the pesto-y side of flavor. Very floral, a little nutty, a bit sharp for my taste. I also found this years “batch” of cocoa amore to be a bit more along these lines as well, so I think it is likely just the qualities of the tea changing a bit. I like it a lot, but Having had it multiple times now, it’s a tad cloying for an everyday tea. I brewed this one a long time, but I tend to do that with black tea :) The Vanilla is AMAZING, such good quality, aromatic, and flavorful, very pleasant overall. Not as chocolatey as I was expecting, but the cocoa amore seemed less chocolatey as well. I highly recommend if the above is to your liking.

This was one of the teas I served last night at my book club and paired it with a Midnight Dark Chocolate cake I made. Dear. Lord. It was so amazing. All of those creamy, cocoa, vanilla notes came through and was just perfection. I may have made a moaning sound when I drank it because it went so well with that cake. Just perfection. Rating up, up, upped!

Cocoa Amore… The tea that I have probably pined over the longest. I remember first joining Steepster and seeing it up there at the top of the rankings and thinking, “Now that sounds like my kind of tea.” Sadly, it was out of stock every time I went to look for it or make an order. Even this time, I went to order it, and shortly after is when Whispering Pines had the Great Tea Flood of 2016. But, Brenden came through and was able to get it shipped out a few weeks after some recovery time.

My first thoughts upon smelling the bag of this is chocolate covered cherry cordial. Heavier on the cocoa/chocolate smell with the cherry being underneath. Very intoxicating.

I brewed Western style, per the suggestions, and I was very happy with what came out. I may have had a lighter hand on the tea but it still had a really nice cocoa flavor with a light cherry underneath. I think if I pushed the leafing a little more that these flavors would be a bit more pronounced.

I was only able to do two steeps (again, the light handedness of the leafing) but they were both very enjoyable. I am really happy that I finally have this tea in my possession. I just want to bathe in the scent of the leaves and Tahitian vanilla.

Backlog 29 July 2016

Notes taken while playing video games.

Dry leaf: A nice golden black hue to the leaf. Smells malty and sweet.

Wet leaf: Reminds me of baked bread/dark beer. Has a slight dark chocolate note. Very rich caramel note after the third steep. Slightly bitter after the fifth steep; however, it remains rich and tasty. Dry mouthfeel.

awesome tea.

Yum, 2nd steep is even better than the first! Great work Whispering Pines!