Whispering Pines Tea Company

Dry: Fluffy golden leaves blended with tightly rolled deep matte black leaves. The smell in the bag is softly vanilla, sweet, and malty.

Steeped: The leaves unfurl in a very pleasing aesthetic way. There is a mixing of the colors and the clear amber liquor bathes them in a golden hue. The smell is vaguely sweet with a hint of cherry and malty vanilla.

Taste: Honestly, the best description I could think of would be a more complex version of Cocoa Amore, which is one of my favorites from WP. I really like the depth of flavor with cherry, cocoa, and vanilla featuring most prominently followed by a hint of wood and morel. I don’t think I would like it at all if there really was a lot of the earth/oak across the palette, but it does a good job of hinting at them. The biggest downside to this tea in my opinion is the pricepoint. At just shy of $22/ounce (excluding shipping), it is one of the most expensive teas I’ve purchased. I am dinging the rating a little bit only because the tasting notes on the website indicated moss, plum, pine, melted chocolate, etc. and I couldn’t detect these. That may not be a bad thing though because pine can be overwhelming as a scent or flavor. Unfortunately, I’ve also found that this one doesn’t hold up to resteeps without going a bit bland and losing all the delicate nuances. I did enjoy the initial vanilla, cocoa, cherries, oak, and morel though and I am glad I was able to finally try this.

Thanks for the sale a while back, Kimquat! This certainly tastes like a Fujian. Somehow with this one, it seems like there is more fragrance to the dry leaves than there is flavor. The flavor is good, but this light amber cup is LIGHT. The caramel notes and the flavor that can only be found in a Fujian tea is there but it certainly isn’t a kick enough in the morning. This one might be lighter than the Laoshan Black, especially since I usually use one teaspoon with that one rather than the 1 1/2 teaspoons I used today. The leaves here do look larger and longer than the Laoshan though. I think I like the Jabberwocky better – it has more of this flavor profile but more depth (which is probably because it’s a blend of three teas). I’m happy to have tried this one anyway… and there is one serving left.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 tsp // 4 min after boiling // 3 min steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 6 min

Yup. I really, really love this one. Having drifted away from overly flavoured teas (although, there is a time and a place for them in my tea cravings….just much less than there used to be…), this tea is perfect.
I’m sipping while I play Shovel Knight, and it’s making it one fine Sunday. :)

Thanks so much, Dexter! (You really have introduced me to some of my favourite teas. :))) )

Wow.
Just, wow.
I have all my samples from Dexter (THANK YOU!!), but I needed something I could make quick, and the brewing directions were written on the baggie, so I went with this one. My daughter was waiting for me, since she wanted to watch Doctor Who together (she picked out “End of Time Part 1”…she just likes to see me get weepy over that cafe scene with The Doctor and Wilf….every time. it gets me every time!).
I sat down with my mug and took a sniff and was blown away…. this smelled like the most REAL vanilla…high quality vanilla…I have ever smelled in a tea! And the chocolate notes swirling with it… just Soooo unbelievable amazing in scent.
Sipping, I was just as amazed… Right now, this could possibly be my favourite flavoured tea… it has everything I want in a flavoured tea!
So unbelievably good!

So I like to stack my activities on my ‘get up from the couch and computer’ periods because evicting the cats from my lap is a time consuming and guilt inducing process and I try to limit that. So this period involved (in order): bathroom, panning for gold in los rios gatos, trash (including bathroom trash and the big stupid plastic bags in the bedroom that the cats keep licking in the middle of the night, I hate that noise), setting up the laundry, making tea, going for a 15 minute walk on the demon hill, coming back to made tea (yay!) and then sitting down again.

I told you this so you would understand why I keep coughing. It is below 50F right now (which is ridiculously warm compared to the rest of the US, but still cold when I only sort of put a coat on and then go for a walk in the dark). During my walk, which was a bit more strenuous than I’ve been doing in my surgery recovery process, I was breathing through my mouth and since then I haven’t been able to stop coughing :(

Anyway, this tea is helping with the coughing a bit, since it’s a warm liquid on my poor throat. I’m glad I read the reviews before sipping for the first time because I was expecting a bit more vanilla in this vanilla tea but the third review down, WP put in a comment that he blends to accentuate the notes present in the base tea rather than attempting a face-punch vanilla flavour. I prefer the latter, usually, but this is definitely the former and it’s none the worse for it because it DOES, in fact, accomplish that goal. The base tea is definitely a really really nice black tea and the milder vanilla is really very nice with it and makes it seem like there isn’t a vanilla ingredient at all, but just that it’s a really vanilla-y black tea, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I’ve figured out how to enjoy the first cup of my pots of WP tea now, which is to ignore the instructions on the bag and add approximately a teaspoon per 250 ml instead of half that. Perhaps once I acclimate my tastebuds again, I’ll be able to go back to the milder flavours, but right now they’re used to soda again and I haven’t had much tea these last few months.

tl;dr: this is a good mild vanilla-y black tea. Approved.

This is a sample from Zack. Thank you!.

I have been a little leery of ordering the blended teas from Whispering Pines, because the pure tea is oh so good. This is a combination of Alioshan Black and Keemun. The Keemun is what stands out to me in this blend, but with the Alioshan, it seems to be a much softer cup. Slightly fruity, a rounded bread flavor with hints of chocolate. A great morning cup.

This tea has strong butter/chestnut notes and a bit of spinach notes. It has a bit of bitterness to it that’s not entirely unpleasant but not something I usually like in my green teas. I might try this one with less brewing time for next time.

I know this is quite a quick review but I think I’m having caffeine overload and might have to eliminate teas for a few days and then only stick to 1 or 2 cups a day. I am just not feeling myself lately. As for this tea, there are some elements of this tea which I tend to love in green teas (butter, chestnut, spinach) but the bitterness is throwing me off.

Haven’t had this tea in ages. This is the kind of tea you only reach for when you’re feeling like something really different – like today.

Last time I left a review, I enjoyed this tea but botched the brewing. I have no idea what brewing parameters I used then but today I went for gong fu. I enjoyed the tea then but I think gong fu brewing made a huge difference on this tea.

First infusion was only 10 sec . Got a bit of maltiness but it was mostly all maple sweetness. I’ve got a terrible sweet craving today and this is really taking care of that today.

2nd infusion -20 sec – Malty, bready, maple syrup Yum Yum! Delicious!

I’m having this tea this afternoon. Silly me. I was thinking this was a shu. If I had known it was a black tea I would have waited for a different day when I only have one black tea (had one this morning). One black tea a day is my limit for black teas.

I also botched the brewing a bit. Wanted to use my new fancy teaware and it was hard figuring out the difference between that and the directions from Whispering Pines as I had a reduced water capacity. All in all , it still came out pretty decent.

Just like everyone else I was amazed when I smelled the dry tea. It had a wonderful maple candy aroma.

Next time I plan on just using the Western brew before I rate this tea. I bet this tea would be pretty amazing cold brewed too.

Sip Down! Sad to see this one go. I’ve been drinking a lot of unidentifiable teas that I can’t review on steepster lately – not writing about the cup afterwards makes the drinking experience less rewarding. Need to put in another order with Whispering Pines so that I can start back on the tea drinking + thinking + writing equation.

This tea tastes luxurious, and it’s making me think about other luxurious things. While sipping and letting my mind wander, I thought about going to the grocery store. Instead of my usual spare fare, I pictured buying steaks for dinner. Though the tea doesn’t have any meaty flavors, it somehow makes me want to go on tasting decadent things.

This was a sample from Whispering Pines with my last order. I had lost this sample but finally found it last night. It had slipped in with my green tea bin! I’m glad I finally found it.

This tea is delicious. It’s chocolate & malt. Not too strong of a black tea which suits me just fine. It is also very sweet. Some others got bitterness with this tea which surprised me. I brewed according to WP’s directions and I got no bitterness. Maybe it sets in when it cools down. I had finished mine before it could cool. A lovely cup of tea.

In spite of its sterling reputation, I feel as though I have never bonded with this tea. The cup is always gone before I’ve noticed it as more than a pleasant, lingering sweetness on my tongue. It’s like a mild person about whom, after a chat, one can only say “she was nice”.

I taste this tea mainly with my tongue and the roof of my mouth. It feels somehow like there are rows of complexity between the two (which is perhaps my breath). My tongue tastes sweetness, while the breath and roof carry a light bitterness.

I definitely taste chocolate, but it feels more balanced than other chocolaty teas. A milk chocolate with a small amount of sweetener, or maybe white chocolate. Usually I take time enjoying my tea, but this one was gone before it even got a chance to cool off.

Sip down of this one today! It is still one of my favourite herbal blends. The elderberries are forefront in this tea with a mingling of different spices. It goes so good on a day like this. The weather is mild but the cold dampness just seems to seep into my bones. This tea is warming and delicious. I will miss it but pretty excited to bring my tea collection down to 93!