Whispering Pines Tea Company

One of the best black teas I have had but the shipping was very slow. Will order again soon when I return home though.

Holy sweet mother of dragons this is delicious!

SUCH a rich, thick, silky smooth mouth feel. So chocolatey. Yum.

So creamy! Can I have this tea instead of whipped cream on a cake? Thinking about it, Golden Orchid is a potentially awesome Valentines day tea – lots of creamy and sweet notes. There are toasted asian milk bread, chocolate and malt too! Very smooth and thick texture, with some dryness 3 infusions later. Yep, this tea can resteep very well and keep the vanilla flavor – huge edge over other tea blends!

Full review at Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/whispering-pines-teas-golden-orchid-tea-tea-review/

I like this tea. I don’t really get the fruity or chocolate flavors that other people do, but I do like the maltiness of it. It has a more complex flavor than other black teas, so it stands well on its own where others would need flavors added.

Out of the package, this tea smells like straight up dark brown sugar. I do get a whiff of woodsy smells on the dry leaf, slight earth, cedar, and dampness.

The resulting brew is incredibly sweet. It tastes like maple candy. There is some lingering flavors of some cocoa and wet wood. The lingering scent of the candy cap mushrooms is definitely floating on top. The mushies mix well with the base black teas. They look beautiful in my white porcelain gaiwan. Today, this tea did not quit, I think I got a record number of steeps from a WP black today! I might have gone on longer, but I had to go to work :P
I am so glad that I got all of WP’s mushroom teas! Who would’ve thunk that Brendan would make already good tea great?

Overboard TTB #15

I was so excited when I saw the sample of this in the TTB! I haven’t tried a lot from Whispering Pines yet, but I love Golden Snail and a chai with that base definitely sounded like a winner to me. And it is! Smooth and malty with the perfect balance of spicy and sweet and just a hint of vanilla in the aftertaste. I enjoyed it both plain and with milk this morning and will be savoring the remainder of the sample (and probably re-ordering at some point once it’s gone.)

Today I have the pleasure of trying this tea, which I’ve been curious about for quite a while. Even though I have tried blends that contain Ailaoshan Black, this is the first time I’m tasting it on its own.

The dry leaf has a warm cocoa aroma. Upon brewing, there’s more of a baked-good sweetness, maybe a touch of caramel. The tea is sublimely smooth, and the taste leans more toward malt and bread than cocoa. There’s a complicated little hint of something like dark berries in the background. As it cools, it has more of a petrichor quality for me, or as others have described, something like wet leaves. While there’s a lot going on here, this is also a comforting tea that can be easily enjoyed without thinking much about it. Thank you beelicious for the sample!

Another sipdown!

TerriHarpLady’s really given me the urge to clear out my cupboard!

This was a swap sent to me by Ost around my birthday, and there was just enough in the baggie for a pot of tea. I’m on my second steep. I agree with the notes on the WP website about this – the tea smelled a lot like fruit after the initial steep was done. I think the smell I got the most of was plum.

However, the taste was a bit more muted and cocoa-like. Glad I got to try some of this, but I don’t know if this would be a restock for me (especially considering how the CDN dollar has turned the exchange rate into murder.)

Hot this tea was nice but nothing too special, however as it started to cool it became pretty much amazing… although I must admit it isn’t something I could drink cup after cup of… As the tea cooled the delicate taste of the morel mushrooms slowly started to make themselves known and as as the tea continued to cool this flavor morphed into a sugary maple mushroom taste (sounds weird but its seriously delicious). Personally I think you would want to be a mushroom liker or better yet lover to really appreciate this tea which thankfully I am! I love Brendan’s description and plan on taking this with me to enjoy the next time we’re backcountry camping and hiking in the Sierra to really enjoy the full experience!

I had this one for breakfast! I was dead tired when I got up, and decided on a plain black tea to get me going. I had a some of my sample of this left so decided to finish it off. Very nice. Smooth, a bit malty, and delicious.

The snow is drifted high in front of my garage door, and my poor shoulder screamed at the idea of trying to shovel my out, so instead of going to church this morning, I am drinking tea and knitting. I still have some of this left from the sample WP sent me so I decided this would be my morning cup. Mmmm, delicious. So smooth, so silky. There is nothing better than a cup of hot tea when the wind is howling outside.

Made this for my afternoon cup. I was glad to see a sample of this was included in my last order from Whispering Pines. I am enjoying it along with a piece of gingerbread. (I made gingerbread yesterday and have been careful not to gobble the entire 8×8″ pan up at one sitting. My sister is coming for supper tonight and I want something for dessert. Aren’t you proud of me?) Anyway, This is a delicious tea. smooth and just perfect with a spicy treat. No bitterness, no sourness, no astringency. Just a nice tea that i’ll probably order again someday in the future.

This is glorious. And little did I know that I would need some gloriousness in my day. It is one of the most delicious cups I have ever had. It was unexpected, for sure. It is very saffron-y, both dry and steeped. I also had no idea how much I would love the cedar scent and flavor that gave an almost boozey aspect. I also really tasted the vanilla in this one, particularly in the second steep when the saffron and cedar chilled out a bit. So great. SO so great. Now I am paranoid of running out. Eep.

Storytime: Online Dating Blows
I just had a terrible phone call, talking to a guy I met here on OkCupid. A guy I’ve been talking to via text and email literally nonstop for days. I request a phone call as the next step. He was normal and able to interact via email, and text. On the phone he was uncomfortable and stiff with overtones of superjerk. Pretty much said all teachers whine too much about how their job is hard when it really is such a cushy job they have no right to complain about anything. And while I agree there are many perks (summers and holidays off, etc), cushy is not the word I would use to describe my future profession (that he knew I was going into).

Even after that I was nice. I asked other questions. Every answer he gave was “I don’t know” followed by dead silence because I literally didn’t know how to respond, until he finally qualified his answers. Eventually I just asked why he was having so much trouble talking to me when he had no problem using text. He basically said he didn’t know what I wanted him to say, unable to grasp that if he would say it over text, he should say it with his actual voice. No more, no less. So I suggested we call it a night.

I have never, ever, in my whole life been in a situation with so much social failure with interaction. Nobody here knows me in person but if they did, they would know I am incredibly socially adept with conversation. Even if they are very awkward people. Ask about enough stuff and eventually you HAVE to hit on a topic that triggers an interest or a memory that could lead to a conversation. But what do you do about a man who, when asked what two pizza toppings he would pick if he could only have two his whole life, says cheese because he doesn’t need complicated pizza? TOPPINGS ARE NOT A COMPLICATION. I can’t even handle it. He didn’t seem stupid an hour ago. I don’t know what happened. Now I am feeling a bit like a dating failure. lol. And frustrated with the whole dating process.

I needed good tea today.

I drank this morning while browsing my tealog. I noticed that I have yet to post a review of this tea. Whaaat? You know what they say, “If not now, when?”

I think there are certain teas that I have been avoiding doing a review for because I feel like I will not be able to express myself properly. And Golden Orchid is one of those teas. I have now tried a few other vanilla blacks and have been able to say what I meant just fine. When it comes to this tea, I mean, what can I say that hasn’t already been said?

Drinking this tea is like eating freshly made fudge with entire vanilla beans threaded through the middle, while wrapped in my softest and most fluffy blanket. The vanilla is lighter on the first steep while the next two become sweeter and sweeter. This is definitely a staple tea for me.

Wow. So I usually like floral teas. I really do. But…this one…
I mean it’s definitely floral. No doubt about it.
But it also tastes a lot like flowers too.
When I opened the bag of this tea it smelled like trees, like as if I were in the woods or something, which was what I was expecting.
But when I went to take a sip there were no trees at all. It was all like flowers and a weird creamy almost peachy flavor?
I don’t know. This is a really really odd tea. I’m not really digging the flowers in this one to be honest. 0_0 I don’t really think that this one is for me. D:
I’m sooo glad that MzPriss was generous enough to send me a sample. THere were so many times that I almost bought this one. Glad I didn’t!
This is seriously like “The Flower Power” tea. Which kinda reminds me of the Producers movie…But that’s what I would re-name this one if I could haha!
Not a horrible tea, it’s just too much for me.
Thank you so much for the sample, MzPriss!!

I imagine this would be pretty darn great in the springtime, particularly when it is approximately 65 degrees. Rainy, clearly. Because it is both warming but light and refreshing when it isn’t cooled.

I am enjoying it now because I am determined to work through some of my cabinet to make room for new things, and keep plugging away at whittling down the stash a bit. Lately I’ve been picking 3-4 tins and 4-5 samples to work on sipping down at once so I have variety in my day, but so I make progress on my storage challenges. I have quite a bit of this, and will enjoy it each day.

To celebrate shoveling the car free of the enormous drifts left by the latest blizzard, I brewed a pot of this tea this afternoon. This is a favorite tea, and it was nice and smooth going down. So warming and comforting on a cold, cold day. I don’t think we got above zero today and there was enough of a breeze that the wind chill was -25. You can imagine I was glad to come in from that and sit down with a warm cup of tea. I suppose at that point almost any hot beverage would have been welcome, but Golden Orchid is one of my faves.

Dang, dang, dang. It’s snowing. Good weather for tea drinking and knitting. I chose to indulge in one of my pricier favorites. Do you ever put off drinking these teas because you don’t want to run out? I do, but really, that is silly. I may as well enjoy it. This one is so smooth it is a joy to drink. No bitterness and no astringency to mar my enjoyment. Just a perfect afternoon tea to indulge in on a cold snowy afternoon.

The snow is finally melting for the blizzard we had last Wednesday and Thursday. Man, I am tired of winter! The only good thing is a little more cold weather for hot tea drinking before I switch over to iced tea.

I dearly love this tea. So smooth, so creamy, so good. I bet it would be great iced, but this one is just too good for that. I mean, iced tea takes more leaf and I don’t want to give any of this one up. So I think I will re-steep and have another cup before bed.

What a bad day. The weather was beautiful. Sunny and upper 20s. Church was good. But I inadvertently started a row online with some friends. I emailed them individually to apologize but no one is replying. I hate leaving things hanging like that. I want closure if not forgiveness. But I can’t force anyone. So I opened my last package of girl scout cookies and brewed half a pot of this tea. Yummy. It’s the best comfort available to me right now.

I spent about 30 minutes digging the car out this morning. Not because I’m planning to go anywhere. And really, what is the point, since we’re expecting another blizzard tomorrow. This will be a ground blizzard, which is what you get when the wind is 50 mph and there is loose snow on the ground. Thanks to the snow fall Friday, we have lots of light fluffy snow to blow around. I’m wintered out. After the ground blizzard on Sunday the high on Monday and Tuesday will be below zero. Really, I’m all done with winter.

One nice thing is coming in, taking off all my cold weather gear and brewing a cup of a tea that I know won’t disappoint. Cheers.