Whispering Pines Tea Company

I got my wonderful Whispering Pines sample pack in the mail on Friday! Woot Woot. MzPriss, and Nicole allowed me to try Ailoashan Black Tea as well as Golden Orchard, but while I was waiting for Ailoashan to be restocked I ordered a few more samples. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this is the base for Golden Orchard. I remember commenting when drinking GO that whatever the base was would be amazing too. I was so right. This is quite the treat. it is rich, dark, and very cocoa. This is not honey sweet, but like having dark, dark chocolate. It would be really interesting to try a cup of this and GO side by side. This one will go on the wish list. I just checked the site, it looks like all the black teas that I am interested in are in stock…. oh man.

Heh, when I read the description on Steepster of this tea I lost my inspiration to write a note. I don’t taste any citrus or orange blossom. Not sure I really taste any of the other things in the description, other than nutty. xD
I blame it on allergies…just screwing up what I taste and smell. When I tasted this tea all I could think about was salted peanuts. It’s so roasty and nutty. Just how most of the oolongs I love taste.
But Now I’m really hungry. And want peanuts. >>

So tired this morning and really needing a kick in the pants or the face…possibly both. It’s my own fault I was up late. I probably shouldn’t have taken a long nap yesterday and then spent two hours drinking oolong when I woke up, but it was fun :-). I thought a good spicy chai might do the trick. I did not know that this was a spicy, smoky chai until I opened the pouch but I decided to go with it anyway. Sigh….smoky teas are just not for me. I pretty much only taste the smoke and this is anathema to my tea drinking enjoyment. This is not the fault of this tea. I’m sure it’s lovely if you like smoke in your tea, but I don’t. I pretty much only like smoke flavor in my gouda and my sausage. Thanks for this sample though, Miss B!

Another really late log (I forgot to log it when I had it last). I’ve actually had this one a few times. The first time, I thought it tasted very much like the roasted Iron Goddess also from Whispering Pines. If I didn’t see that the leaves were different, I almost would have thought it was the same one. Except, not quite. I didn’t pick up any of the coconut notes that I got from the Iron Goddess.

This is a decent super roasty tea, but not my favorite Big Red Robe.

Method: 1 tbsp, 8 oz, 208 degrees, 5 minutes, Forlife brew in mug strainer & Dr. Who mug

Dry Leaf Aroma: Lightly Evergreen

Brewing Aroma: Same as above

Flavor: Fascinating. This was a very mild and lovely tea. It definitely doesn’t look like most teas. The buds are very pretty. This wasn’t sweet, but it didn’t need any additives. It’s really hard for me to describe. I could taste several distinctive flavors, but aside from a lightly evergreen flavor, I couldn’t tell you what the rest of them were!

I think I am going to need to try this one a few more times, paying special attention to the flavors. Maybe over time I will be able to identify more. This one is absolutely worth the effort!

Method: 1/2 tsp, 8 oz, 208 degrees, 5 minutes, French Press

Dry Leaf Aroma: Smells exactly like a campfire

Flavor: Luckily the flavor is more subdued. I was a little unsure if I could like a tea that smelled so strongly of a campfire. This tea definitely tastes smoky, but it’s mild enough to be pleasant. The tea was a dark amber color, and the campfire aromas wafting up from the mug were very nostalgic.

I don’t think smoky teas will ever be my faves, but I think this one has definite merits. I can see myself drinking this by the fire pit in the summer. Now I just need to buy a fire pit!

A good, solid tea. Nothing that I will want to keep on hand for itself, but am certainly interested in trying the blends with this in them. It’s a fine, solid Yunnan.

This is only the second time I’ve had this tea since I bought an ounce. Why have I done this to myself?? I guess it’s just so good that it feels special and not like an every day tea. But I jumped on the golden orchid wagon this morning and brewed some up before breakfast/lunch/whatever.

It’s even better than I remembered. That’s the mark of an excellent tea! It’s rich, and fudgy, and just dreamy…sigh. One of the best things about this tea is that you still taste great tea and somehow simultaneously taste the rich vanilla and chocolate. It’s such a winning, no wonder it’s the number one tea on Steepster :)

Next up in the Whispering Pines sample pack! Yes, I did choose all the expensive ones….what can I say :-)

I opened the cute little pouch and I was shocked! It smelled like super rich fudge. I knew there was vanilla added to this blend…but there must be chocolate too? Nope! HOW? I managed to wait long enough to not burn myself to take the first sip and it did not disappoint! It also tastes like rich, creamy fudge, but not overpoweringly so you get tea + fudge. Tea fudge! Is that a thing? If not, it should be! I make a lot of fudge since it is my boyfriend’s favorite and this is giving me ideas :-). This tea is surprising and wonderful and just so well executed. Love it!

Thanks to Mz P. for sending some of this my way!

I can see why people like this tea… it smells very chocolate-y in the bag and when you steep it up it’s so nice and rich. It definitely tastes like chocolate too! Is it a flavored tea or is it natural? I see it has vanilla in it which would explain the almost creamy quality it has. Anyway I’m glad I got to try this one! It’s good with soymilk and it’s also good plain.

This is my #1 favorite tea, hands down. I’ve already had it many times Western style, but I thought I needed to experience it gongfu style too. Let me tell you, that experience deserves its own review too! Here’s how I brewed: 3g at 205F H2O for 15/15/30/40/60 sec

steep 1: This steep is all bread and chocolate with a honey sweet finish. Chocolate croissant, anyone?

steep 2: The chocolate hides for this steep, but caramel comes out to play and brings its friend butter, all over the bready base. Mmmm so buttery and smooth!

steep 3: This was a repeat of steep 2. I’m not mad about that at all.

steep 4: This steep is where it’s at. OMG. Dying. Caramel + dark chocolate + honey. So sweet and so smooth

steep 5: And we finish up with buttery, scrumptious bread. Steep four was my favorite, but this is actually a really nice way to finish the session!

Everyone, do yourself a favor and get your hands on some Ailaoshan Black. You’ll be in total tea love too :)

I got my Whispering Pines samples early! I checked the tracking this morning when I got up and was so excited that I rushed to the mailbox in my more-than-slightly sheer tank and some shorts that I slept in….oops. I seriously did not even think about it until I was almost there but luckily, I don’t think I was spotted. I love the packaging and the handwritten note, btw. That totally made me smile :-).

Anyway. THIS TEA. Let me tell you about how great it is. At first sip, a really nice salty caramel note hits that morphs quickly into chocolate all over a very malty, bready background that reminds me of a croissant. The sip ends with a burst of sweet fruitiness. Sorry I can’t be more specific about the fruit, but I don’t have magical Tea Fairy taste buds that can detect that level of nuance. The flavor then fades away to a really clean mouthfeel that I’ve mentioned in a couple of my tasting notes. I also feel like that’s not a helpful descriptor but I’ve thought about it a lot and that’s all I can come up with. I am a HUGE fan of that in a tea though.

From the unflavored TTB
I brewed this Western style, so as to leave a little for the next person in the list. The aroma was spicy with hints of grass. The taste is full of spice, with grass/straw highlights. Taste is fairly big, but the finish is just huge: very rich and powerful and goes on forever. This is my favorite style of oolong: a nice balance between green and black, with the best features of each.

From the unflavored TTB.
I used less tea than I normally do per the instructions in the TTB. I didn’t need more than 1 gram. Powerful nose is a blend of autumn leaves, chocolate, and smoke. The taste is similar. This is a very good tea, but I think I prefer the Yunnan stlye that is heavier on the chocolate. The finish is almost ethereal: the blend of the flavors changes subtly and it fades very slowly. Others’ tasting notes mention caramel, and the flavor now seems obvious to me, but I don’t see the honey, raisins, etc.

Although this isn’t my favorite flavor mix, the tea was so well made and interesting that it still rates a very high score.

Oolong rocks my world. Especially TGY. But I’m critical when it comes to it cause I have tried many and lots of them just taste generic to me. Not bad, but nothing overly special. Since I now have a well garnished selection of my favourites that I keep at all time, I don’t seek them as much as I used to, I’m pretty satisfied with what I have.

When I read that Whispering Pines were roasting their own TGI, it got me really curious to try the first batch.

I’m having it in the gaiwan.

This is not heavily roasted, but just enough to bring out those sweet caramel notes.
And boy, are they present. I get dark caramel, sweet corn and light mineral notes. At the first steep, the wet leaves smell like slightly burnt kernels and roasted coffee.

Another thing that really got me to try it was the “caramelized bananas” mentioned in the description. I mean come on. Pretty hard to resist that one.

And you know what? Don’t underestimate the power of suggestion cause it really worked, I definitely got that, but wouldn’t have come up with it on my own!

It looses some of its “roastiness” at the fourth steep, that’s when peachy fruity notes and a nice floral mouthfeel emerge. As it cools, I get a light camphor minty finish, and it really lingers.

Me like.

All I’m really saying is this TGY lot no. 1 is wicked good. More please.

Additional notes: THANKS SO MUCH for sending me over a few samples of these Whispering Pines teas, Kawaii433! I truly appreciate you sharing them. Most of them I haven’t been able to try and if I did, it was ages ago, or the samples were of questionable age. (Has Whispering Pines really been around for ages? At least AN age.) So it is great to revisit some of these teas, even if I had the honor of trying them before. I rated this tea 99 five years ago and that is an elite group. Unfortunately, this new harvest isn’t wowing me…at all. It’s not a matter of being tea spoiled because I can generally appreciate a tea about as much as I appreciated a tea before… even if the tea I have around is on the older side. But this isn’t old tea anyway. I wanted to savor these two teaspoons of leaves, so used one teaspoon for this steep session without filling the mug all the way (this should have resulted in a similar leaf to water ratio that is mentioned in the description). Sadly the flavor is not as chocolate or vanilla as I remember. I didn’t see any vanilla beans in this sample, even though I remember quite a few from the harvest of five years ago. The brew simply isn’t deep enough to remotely resemble chocolate. The flavor is very light. Too light for me to even describe… it’s like the faintest flavor of Fujian black tea. But PLEASE don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself. Maybe with the parameters you use, it will be the same lovely tea once again. I tried this tea years ago and of course harvests can’t be exactly the same. It’s a shame though. If I lowered ratings, this tea would now receive a 72. :/
Steep #1 // 1 teaspoon for not quite full mug // 10 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 8 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 4 min

Additional notes: This avalanche of snow means a special sipdown of a special tea. This one! I’m sad to let this one go, but hopefully it will be with me again in the future. I’ll be sipping three large mugs of this all day. I’m reading China Mieville’s ‘Last Days of New Paris’ and it is crazy weird amazing. It might make other books boring for me. Uh oh. I’ve been sipping down tons of teas lately! Probably because I know my Dammann Freres order will be arriving (thanks to Zennenn and everyone who was so kind to split teas!) and I’m also planning an Angry Tea Room black friday order… mainly because they were kind enough to send over samples AND their teas are irresistible. But that will be it for me for a while… even though I’m itching to order from a few other places. :D

Edited to add: Oh gosh, I just saw my other tasting note for this tea and it also uses the word “avalanche” but under the context of my vast number of tasting notes. I like tasting notes better than snow. :D

I’m sure everyone enjoyed the break from my avalanche of tasting notes while I had the Butiki traveling teabox. haha. This was certainly the first tea I wanted to try once the teabox was traveling again. MzPriss sent me a few things even though I’m eagerly awaiting her teabox that seems like it only has the best teas!

THIS tea is the highest rated on Steepster and well deserved. It’s better than I expected, and I expected greatness. I haven’t given a tea a 99 rating in a while. I used 2 1/2 teaspoons. I was able to get three really nice steeps by waiting for the first cup after boiling a few minutes, the second a couple minutes, the third just boiled. This is exactly my sort of tea. Just look at those flavor notes. I had to check the ingredients list to make sure there actually wasn’t chocolate of any kind. There isn’t. I realize that this is a Yunnan Dian Hong blended with a Fujian, but this is the kind of flavor I look for whenever I try Verdant’s Laoshan. I’ve only tried steeping one teaspoon of the Laoshan though – maybe I should try 2 1/2 teaspoons at least once. This actually tastes like melted chocolate though. With some crunchy vanilla beans. I can see how WP compares this to cherry, but I wished there would have been more of that flavor. The third steep was still very good, but it seemed more like sweet potato than chocolate. Absolutely none of that cedary oversteeped flavor. This blend is absolutely amazing and I would love to try everything that WP ever blends!

For some reason I was really really craving a chocolate tea today. Don’t even know why, but I really was. This one totally hit the spot!
It’s not often that I crave chocolate-y teas, which is why I don’t have tons of them in my collection. I honestly kinda just feel the need to have this chocolate-y tea in my collection and no other one. Plus! This one doesn’t taste like wood! Keep thinking that maybe it will start tasting like wood randomly since apparently my taste buds love ruining everything, but they’ve not betrayed GO yet, so that’s good! XD

Was gonna try Snickerdoodle next…but the maple tea really did disappoint me today. And since everyone seems to be drinking this lately I decided this was an appropriate time to jump back on the GO Wagon.
I always forget how good this one is! Not getting a single note of disappointment from this tea! ^^

Mmm haven’t had this tea in a while….
Still delicious! ^^

Oh my word!! FINALLY trying this tea! Super stoked.
I’ll write a better note later when I’m not in tons of pain. Definitely tasting the chocolate and malt. Not noticing tons of vanilla actually, but I’m pretty sure that’s just because my pain is really distracting me today. I really love this tea though. I’m so so happy I finally got to try it! Whispering Pines really is awesome! :D I can’t wait to try more teas from them. Will definitely have to put in a bigger order later in the year.
I totally understand the hype now!! ^^

I kept this from the herbal tea box, because I thought it might be useful someday. I don’t feel sick, I just feel sinus-y from all of the rain and yuck. When I smelled this in the pouch, it was so super strong, like a cough drop in tea form. I thought I would be drinking a “necessary evil” type thing. But I actually really like it. I think it’s the ginger. So if it helps unstuff me, great. I am enjoying it either way.

In other news, I am watching Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary. All of his stuff is disappearing from Netflix after June so I am racing the calendar. It is sort of driving me crazy though, there are a lot of celebrity voice overs, and I swear this guy’s voice is one of them http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001137/?ref_=tt_cl_t6 (his voice is distinctive) but he isn’t on the list.