Whispering Pines Tea Company

From Here’s Hoping TTB, R5

Where’s all the lovely notes in the description? Tastes like smoke. Blergh. Not my cup of tea.

=(

This definitely gets better as it starts to cool down! Initially i couldn’t taste any of the chocolate notes everyone keeps mentioning but then suddenly, around 15 minutes after brewing, BAM, there’s that delicious chocolate note! I brewed this western style as I’m feeling super lazy today (probably because its another day of sorting, cleaning and throwing in preparation for, our now pretty much guaranteed move… the only thing still unconfirmed is where??). The tea has a great creamy mouthfeel, elevated by a splash of milk, and there are some great malt, chocolate and honey notes once the tea has cooled down to just above luke warm…. yum! Glad I have a little more of this stashed away to enjoy.

Brendan included this as a free sample in my order. Thank you so much!

I had a gongfu session with a ceramic gaiwan. Did a quick rinse. Steeping times: 7, 7, 10, 10, 15, 30, 45, 60, 120, 240.

I let the dry leaf sit in the heated bowl for half a minute. That brought out an aroma of milk chocolate cocoa, with loam underneath. After the rinse, the leaf smelled of bread, and somewhat sour. Later in the session had black grapes and earth.

It takes a bit for this shou to come out. The first few infusions taste mostly sour. The liquor is rusty colored. At the fourth, the liquor turns very dark red and is cloudy, but then it clears beginning with the fifth.

It is at the sixth infusion everything falls into place. The texture is thick and soft, and the the body is full. At first I taste cream of mushroom soup, which then develops into a maple syrup sweetness. Seven through nine are sweet with cocoa and earth, with an aftertaste of plums. A heavy feeling. After this point, the shou weakens in flavor and color, but the texture and body remain the same.

Like cocoa bread in a cup. Not chocolate bread, mind you, but cocoa bread. The kind that doesn’t have sugar added to it. Reminds me very strongly of Golden Fleece. A cup of pure wow. Thanks to whoever included this with a swap or a stash purchase – I’m thinking either Marzipan or Liquid Proust.

Juicy! This brew is pure life water! I opened up the package and was blasted in the face by a sweet aromatic nectar and fresh greens scent. This took me back to the spring harvest from earlier this year. The scent was so fresh and green. I was reminded of the bi lo chun from April. The scent was deep and rugged, yet it was also still floral and sweet. I placed some inside my warmed teapot and gave it a shake. The scent deepened to heavier greens alike, spinach, kale, and artichoke. These bulky greens was wrapped up in a syrupy floral fragrance. This tea is bringing me back to spring. The tea is super hardy so no need to worry about over brewing. The liquor is beautiful. The brew is a delicate translucent white. You can spot only the slightest of difference in water color. The taste is phenomenal The initial sip begins intensely sweet. The brew fills the mouth and gives a nice floral finish (lily or tulips). The base consists of watercress, chestnut, and brief apricot. The brew is so light and clear, but it tastes so thick and syrupy. There is a light drying sensation that follows each drink, but this feeling is soothed by a silky mouth feel. The easiest way to describe this brew is the taste of mountain air during the spring. The tea gives off such life, and it’s delicious. I was able to re steep this brew about four times, which I find to be a lot for green tea. The brew continued to be almost completely clear and fantastically sweet. I’m very happy to have been able to try this, and I still have a little left.

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https://instagram.com/p/9bihZjzGf0/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

An good daily drinker and probably a good intro to ripe pu’er cake!

I got notes of bitter sweet, wet earth, cream, and mostly walnut. With each steeping the tea got more brown sugar sweet and nutty. Very smooth texture! I didn’t get much cha qi/ tea drunk’n so I ended up drinking this late into the evening. A very friendly, ready to drink, daily drinker ripe that is smooth and easy to chug!

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2013-ontario-1357-ripe-shou-puer-from-whispering-pines-tea-co-tea-review/

GRRR…something’s up with dashboard or my browser but this is my third attempt to review this tasty tea. I’d read a few great reviews of Whispering Pines teas so placed my order. While I was a bit bummed that most of their blends seemed to be out of stock (!), I ordered a few chais and two herbals including this one.
This was the first out of the package and the minute I opened the package the freshness hit me in the nose. Pow! I could imagine the guy at Whispering Pines having poured the magick right out of his mortar and pestle and into the little ziploc paper envelope.
I was also delighted when the minute the hot water hit the tea, it blossomed with color. This is some FRESH tea! The website listed this as a good night-time tea and 30 minutes after having a cup my partner is snoring on the futon in the living room. So, take that as some kind of seal of approval. I’d definitely get this tea again although it did seem a bit on the pricey side. But I can’t complain with the freshness of the tea, so that probably explains it.

Beautiful tea – not a beautiful taste
Taste very dusty, almost like chalk

Yum! Another hit for the day. In ordering this chai, I was hoping for a chai that didn’t need milk and sugar, since those are off limits for the time being. This fit the bill perfectly. Even though I am not crazy about the base by itself, in this tea it is perfect. The combination of spices and base are magic. I love it. The balance between base and spice is exactly how I like it. Strong spice.

Enjoying this, received in a swap a while ago. Good complementarily of flavors with the ginger having the perfect level of just-beyond-mild intensity to give flavor and warmth without much bite. Such a well-blended tea.

I fell in love with this tea in Summer of 2014. I believe that batch was a combination of Fujian Black and Dian Hong. The first sip of this… damn the FB is not there. It is way more smokey/savory without the sweet deep chocolate note that I loved from FB. I quickly went to the website to see what was replacing the FB. Xiao Zhong, yep that would explain the smokey/savory note. I like it, but I am not as in love with it as I was with the Summer 2014 version. This is missing the sweetness of the other version and it seems a tad thinner than before, but without a side by side comparison I can’t say for sure. Still a wonderful tea, just a little different.

Still gathering my energy back after a bug this weekend. I took a night off from the gym and sat and read and drank tea. I enjoyed a gong fu sessions with this tea. With my expectations set right for the tea it was much more enjoyable for me. There is a spicy sweet flavor that I honestly have no idea how to describe, spiced raisin maybe? It was warm and calming. I am not sure that I would repurchase this one, but I am looking forward to enjoying the rest of the oz that I do have.

My WP order is here! Woot Woot!. So I ordered this tea not fully educating myself on it. I was thinking it would be a TWMBish tea or a PTAish tea. It is not. I have had a tea similar to this and I believe it was called a Red Jade. The spices in this are different, very different than your average tea. I am on the fence about whether I like this combination of flavors. My expectations were in the way this morning. I will try this gong fu and see what becomes of it with this method. This morning it was a cross between tomato soup with hints of cinnamon, mint and anise.

OMG! Amazing. This is like drinking silk. It is smooth and creamy. How does tea do that? It has a slight roast to it, in other words slightly less roasty than a few other DHP’s I have had and it is screaming with juicy flavor. I can never pick out the exact fruits, but juicy works for me. I really wanted to try the WP autumn jade and golden lilly so I might just have to order those and more of this. Yum.

From the Here’s Hoping TTB R5,

I don’t know if this tea is just old or not to my taste but I didn’t particularly enjoy this cup, which is sad in a way because I’ve been looking forward to trying WP vanilla teas.

There’s also something in this tea that made my throat very scratchy and swell up. It was not fun. I didn’t even attempt a 2nd steep. =(

Dripping grey clouds coat the sky in chilling wetness and muck. No rain, snow or hail for now, but the wind blows tenaciously to get water on someone. If it doesn’t, then it can savor the accomplishment of keeping the fine people of Michigan State University cooled and determined to profit Starbuck’s. I, however, am an agonizing nonconformist with his glass travel mug and an over sized tea ball. And thus, Harvest Chai becomes the Excalibur against this weather and the horrendous onslaught of blind consumerism. It aids me well and tastes so, so good.

This is officially my favorite Chai. I really hope that Brenden releases this tea again, and I would highly recommend it to chai lovers or people wanting to try something from his company. My mom actually liked it and she is not exactly a chai person. I can only see people being detracted by the price and how mellow this oolong is compared to the vivid descriptions you get on the website….or what I’m writing. In short, it tastes like a chai with a smooth, crisper tea that is closer to a black, but not too robust. It is as mild as fall, which is the season this tea caters to. It’s also the bane of winter rain.

I have one last serving before this tea is gone. Yes, I’m being melodramatic. I’m a 20 year old Social Studies major reading Plutarch and Livy in a modern art museum, all while wearing a grey heathered cardigan, black, glossy workout pants, a black and grey designer scarf, and a black v neck lounge shirt one size too tight. What more pretension can you expect?

More oolong leaves made this tea perfect for today, and I am so glad I snatched some before it sold out. Got four great cups out of a heaping teaspoon. The oolong is so good and so crisp, almost like an apple dipped in a thin layer of caramel. The chai spices really bring out the natural notes this time making this one of the best chai blends I’ve had yet. But that’s just my personal opinion, and I am biased to the brandy oolong.

One of the better chais I’ve had. Overall, fairly crisp and the notes on the website are accurate.Refer to his website for how to brew and the other notes. I just wish that I could taste the oolong a little more, but when I do, it tastes like a cooked, dark red delicious. The chai spices, especially the ginger, the tart tellicherry pepper corn, allspice, and cinnamon take over. Nevertheless, the oolong base is awesome…and I’ve always wanted to try an Oolong as a chai. I’m not sure If I like the Elder Grove or this one more. Elder Grove is more like a dessert cinnamon roll, while this is for the fall. Specifically, for Michigan’s fall which is the precedent of true cold. I’ve got to be prepared. Winter is coming.

Thank you so much Whiteantlers for letting me enjoy this tea two cups more. Michigan is a cantankerous Goddess, and she decided to snow and keep the snow in April after a few weeks of blooms, sunshine, and breeze. And of course my blood sugar is high this morning, so coffee is not an option. Even black, the caffeine from coffee raises my insulin resistance and renders my veins throbbing with sugary sweet blood. Fortunately, I can enjoy this tea on this white Saturday morning of “spring” getting the roasted profile of coffee I love.

I reread some of the notes on here, and I forgot how people contended the chocolate or cocoa notes of this tea. Then, there’s the “chocolate notes” debate that I’ve recently been a part of and have complained about before with certain oolongs-I’m looking at you Dahongpao. I’ve been able to pick more up on them lately, but for this tea, the cocoa is more in texture and the tea’s bitter-sweetness. But barley and carob are the things that I personally taste more, maybe with a hint of toasted coconut. I’ve had this in conjunction with a carob-barley coffee replacement and they are pretty darn close-only this tea is naturally smoother, lighter, and less bitter (still bitter sweet anyway).

As much as I like this tea, I’m not sure if I could get a large quantity of it. When I crave it, I crave it, but when I’m not in the mood for it, it’s just bitter and roasted. And I noticed that I liked it on cold days. So this tea might be a seasonal one for me. I still have yet to come across a Dark Roast Tie Guan Yin or other dark roast oolong that quite compares.

I’m hesitant about dark roast Tiegaunyins because they typically taste like char and wood stain. This one had a little bit of a char taste, but only when it was oversteeped. That’s why I was afraid to try this one, but Brenden was generous enough to include a sample with my order. It is by far one of the best oolongs he has given me. Again, I followed instructions on his website, and got the following: caramel, spiced coffee, barley, oats, brown sugar, and cocoa. Translation of the tea notes: a really nicely roasted tea with a dark element to it. The second time I brewed was not as good as the first, but I was having issues with the water. Unfortunately, this tea does take care to brew, though not quite as finicky as other oolongs can be. The only other criticism is the price-if I wasn’t over budget already, I would buy 4 ounces of this and replace my morning coffee with it. This tea really does appeal most to coffee drinkers because of it’s roasted character and pleasant caffeine boost.