Whispering Pines Tea Company

(Summer 2023) Black tea with a generous, complex mix of flavors. Has a meaty, savory quality that I admire, though am not yet fully in love with.

(Summer 2023)

(Summer 2023) Not bad, but a bit quiet aromatically.

(Summer 2023) Wow, far out. Super malty, nutty, with a fresh-baked baklava nose. A real generous earthy mouthful, with hay and dry leaf matter, and a beautiful honeyed, layered smoothness. Paired with sexy generous roast fruit. Keeps delivering and changing through many steeps. Love.

(Summer 2023) Indeed, this has a breezy high tone floral perfume that invites you into a tea with beautiful depths and roundness. Generous poached summer fruits on the palate. Top notch!

Shared this with a strictly-with-milk tea drinker, and we both loved it. Incredibly robust, a little smoky, some cocoa… I’d say there’s some malt here, too. I loved it black, but it was really outstanding with oat milk.

From Daylon R Thomas a while ago, thanks very much!  Can’t believe only Daylon ever wrote a note for this.  Must have been a quick offering from Whispering Pines and then disappeared.  The dry leaf looks absolutely my jam:  twisty with lots of gold… what I can only describe as a beautiful mess of twisted leaves. :D  It’s quite the golden cup!  Might be a little light for me, but it’s great for a light tea.  Lots of mineral notes.   I think the lingering aftertaste might even be better than while drinking it: like a tomato soup that is mostly cream.   Then maybe some pine sap and BBQ sauce spices.  The second steep is almost FULL buttermilk or cream.  Very odd and unique!  I don’t think I have noticed buttermilk in a tea before?  The leaf looks fierce in appearance, but the flavor is so delicate, I almost wouldn’t guess it was a black tea.  Definitely a tea I might occasionally crave, if I’m not in the mood for a strong cup…
Steep #1 // two teaspoons for a mug // 20 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 //  just boiled // 4 min

Album: Wye Oak – Every Day Like the Last: Collected Singles
Song: Fortune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNBjdcxB9J4

Sipdown 14 – 2024

Mmmmm so tasty. Lilac. Bright green and floral. Sp springy and fresh.

Shocked (okay, not really, all things considered) I haven’t yet written a note on this tea. I shared some with a new friend who primarily drinks bagged blacks with oat milk, and they are head over heels for it. Yesssssss.

This might be my favorite black tea… absolutely top three, I’ll say, in case I’m forgetting two whole teas somehow. I was shocked the first time I tasted it, as the amount of flavor that comes from these leaves is incredible — brown sugar, fig/raisin, a whisper of nuts. Rich, thick mouthfeel with no astringency. Assam has a whole new meaning to me now.

Freebie with my last order – thank you!

Smooth and sweet with rich, warm tones that are light and sparkling. With such a strong fragrance, I can overlook the lack of depth in the mouthfeel. It is a very easy drinker. I feel a soothing mix of cassia and cypress in the throat but without the sharpness of the former. Resteep is good.

There are a lot of Earl Greys out there that schlop bergamot on top of a so-so base, which is likely why it took me so long to warm up to Earl Grey as a genre. Had I tried this one first (hugs to derk), my opinion would be oh, so different! Big, beautiful curly leaves—ashmanra mentioned sweet potato as a flavor profile in her review, and I think that’s spot on; I also get a little fresh wheat bread there, too. Spritz those leaves lightly with fine, fresh bergamot; just enough to scent and garnish it, not soak it in cologne. So good I’m postponing my afternoon housekeeping plans (didn’t take much coaxing) to rock in the glider and sniff the cup.

Tea, cocoa, and goofy chaos with my fifth and sixth graders today. Highlights:

(re: lapsang souchong) Uh, that’s just not natural.
(Joseph was originally from Nazareth, not Bethlehem) Since when?
(An innkeeper is not specifically mentioned in the Luke 2 Christmas story) That must be in one of the newer versions.
(“What in the world are you doing?”) Sanding off my Oreo into the cocoa.
(Out the door) Can I take some of that tea home to my mom?

…after which, a quiet afternoon was welcome, and this little treat from derk added an extra layer of cozy elegance. Some vanilla teas taste like artificial vanilla extract. These are quality long, blond leaves, that have snoodled up under a blankie with real-thing vanilla beans. So nice!

So comfortable. Well rounded and soft. Dreamy.

Thank you Brendan! I’m not going to say no to some free Laoshan. It’s actually nice to have some fresher leaves too. I was going to do this one western, but I did mug-fu. 35 seconds so far, and it’s got the typical cocoa profile and some squash thrown in there too. It is sweeter though, and I got a borwned marshmallow in the aroma. Tasting it, it’s got a little bit of a smores thing going on. Such a good black tea. There’s that bittersweetness at the end. I love aromatic blacks, so easy win right now. I’ll write more about this later.

Finally got to try an oz of this one! It always looks sooo pretty, and it is very pretty in reality. The smell has a lot of complexity, though the western/grandpa brew that came out was heavy on malt and sweet potatoe. The flavors didn’t have too much dimension, but it was definitely enjoyable. I’ve been spoiled by Imperial North Winds in the past, so it’s got stiff competition. However, I have darker sweeter blacks that will blend nicely. This will ground out some of the sweetness and add more “starch” or bread(th). I know, bad pun.

I sipped this down very quickly, and have worked at it between yesterday and Christmas day. I also ordered some other teas to share with Leafhopper and write about on here. I’m surprised and greatly appreciative that Brendan sent it out TODAY of all days. I did not expect it, but I really appreciate it.

This one is one of the better Vanilla teas I have on hand at the moment. I love how rich and full it is between the vanilla and natural dark wood and cherry notes of the tea. Most of the vanilla teas are out of stock on the website right now, but fortunately, I’ve got a decent share of the Taiwanese blacks to hold me off for now. I really liked how smooth and rich this one was out of all of them.

I’m almost done with this one and I’m sad about it. I’ve got so much black tea that I drink roughly 33% of so far, but I’ve still been getting more. I’ve really wanted some Taiwanese Blacks like an assam or such lately, but I don’t have it in my stock. I’m enjoying this one before its gone.

I like this one. I took it out and drank it western mug style in my cup with a built in strainer, let it sit for about 3 minutes, took it out, sipped it, allowed it to cool in the crisp air, and then enjoyed it. I mostly get vanilla, oak, wood, malt, and black tea. Sometimes, I get cocoa along the lines of bakers chocolate, and I usually get steep 2 cherry notes. IT’s a very earthy vanilla tea. I actually like this one a little more than Golden Orchid, but it’s on the same tier as Cocoa Amore. It’s a little bit more subdued than cocoa amore since that one has a little bit more bitterness, whereas this one is earthier and more woodsy while maintaining some smoothness. I like it, but I’m pretty easy to sell to anyway. My rating hovers between an 88-92.

Preordered for the temporary vanilla dreams release. I tumbler styled it, and was actually pleased with it. Heavy on the earthy woody notes with the vanilla and malt. Sometimes, there were some mushroom or rootlike qualities to it. When it cooled off, it tasted something like cream soda or rootbear to me in tea form. I don’t have too much to add right now. Rivendell and Cocoa Amore were my favorites of the Vanilla dreams, and I’m glad I can mark this one off as one I’ve tried.

I roughly "gongu"d this so that I could use a smaller amount in my 100mL gaiwan. Three minutes.

Smell: Bergamot first, very well balanced. Light sweet trichome smell. Brewed, stronger trichome and malty sweetness. I’ve worked around very dusty, trichome-heavy teas for so long that I associate a smell with them now, a sort of thick, sweet dust.

Taste: malt, burnt sugar. Not getting any bergamot! As it cools, I get a bit of bitterness at the back of the throat, bergamot-adjacent. From there, the bergamot builds a bit with sips, but doesn’t get very strong. A little light, but the bonus is it doesn’t hide the notes of the tea at all. Citrus, grapefruit, molasses, honey.

Second steep at 7 minutes—smell the bergamot on the liquor now. Taste is light, citrus/grapefruit, honey. Most of the stronger notes from the previous steep are gone.

I feel like the pairing is well-done, sweet, light, balanced. It would be interesting to compare this tea fresh, as I’m sure the bergamot’s dissipated a lot.

No other tasting notes for a Whispering Pines tea?!?! This is from Daylon R Thomas!  Thanks so much!  I have been drinking so many Nepal teas lately — all of them different tasting, yet so elusive in describing, that I’m skipping writing tasting notes for many of them… for now.  This one is very good.  Twisty black leaves with only a hint A HINT of auburn.  (But it also looks like my sample has a stray sickle of white tea in there.)  The flavor was surprisingly smoky in that first cup!  I didn’t expect smoke at all. The brew is crisp, clear, sweet.  A medium strength black.  The next morning, finishing the dregs when the cup has cooled, the smoke is gone. The flavor is so different this morning that I forgot I didn’t steep a second cup yet.  The second steep is much less smoky.  I can appreciate the clearness of this tea, the crisp cleanness, which seems the opposite of what otherwise, is mostly a tea with a smoky note.  Not bitter or murky at all, though usually I would prefer a murky tea, this one is just a gem.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a mug // 18 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 //  just boiled // 4 min