58 Tasting Notes
Yesterday I tried and reviewed Whispering Pines North Wind tea, which is the base of Golden Orchid, so I was very excited to see how they built on such a strong foundation. Golden Orchid is every bit as good as North Wind, and perhaps not better but simply a different tea to suit a different day. It just so happened that yesterday was cold and rainy, lending itself well to North Wind, and today is beautiful and sunny like Golden Orchid. Both are good days though! It’s very impressive how the vanilla added to Golden Orchid does not drown the delicious black tea of North Wind, but rather it adds dimension.
I plan on stocking both North Wind and Golden Orchid to my tea cupboard, some days that wonderful base may be called for and some days something a little extra. Either way these two blends are among the best I have tasted!
This is truly an excellent tea, the shear amount of flavor contained in this simple blend of two teas is remarkable! Kudos to Whispering Pines for bringing these two teas together to make some very special! I’m generally wary of blends, and it seemed unrealistic to expect so many different notes from straight black tea, but this meeting between two great black teas in inspired. Whispering Pines does a much better job describing the rich and complex flavor of this tea than I ever could, just let me add that they are dead on!
I’m very impressed by how well Butiki blended this oolong, given how overpowering pineapple can be as a flavor, but they have done so beautifully here. The pineapple tastes fresh but never overwhelming, and the base oolong is wonderful unto itself. It’s absolutely perfect for a rainy grey morning like we’re having today, not so overly sweet as to be called a dessert tea but special enough to be a treat!
This is a wonderful tea, so smooth and fresh i feel as though I visited the fields in Anxi where it was grown! It starts off quite strong but mellows out as you move through the cup allowing you to explore the complex flavor. Buttery is a great way to describe it, I went through several steeps without realizing it because it was just so smooth. Successive steeps also mellow the flavor a bit, but it stays strong through at least 4 steeps in my experience. Kudos to Whispering Teas for providing so much info about the tea that helps give a little context as to what’s behind the cup, for me the story of the tea is a very important part of the overall experience! This is definitely going to become a regular for me!
I’m not a fan of banana as a flavor, so this tea was a bit of a risk for me, but I’m very happy to have tried it since it’s an excellent desert tea! In fact this may be one of my favorite teas, after a few more cups we’ll see but it’s just so delicious! When my family goes camping we make sweet treats in the coals of our campfire, we start with a banana cut down the middle and add bits of chocolate and fruit, seal it in tinfoil then pop it into the fire. This tea tastes remarkably like that treat, it remind me of summer and campfires and laughing and all the good things from my childhood! So glad to have found this tea!
What makes this tea special for me is the quality of the coconut flavor, it’s so smooth and clean! So often coconut flavoring ends up taking artificial or generic, like a premixed smoothie or chewing gum. Even some of the better teas I’ve tasted that included shredded coconut have tasted a bit stale. Not this tea however, it’s quite fresh and lovely! I also love that Rooibos is given room to come through, and it’s a tasty Rooibos at that. I’m not sure that the pie side comes through for me, but it is a great creamy coconut tea!
I should start by saying I’ve never had Genmaicha before so I readily admit that my dislike may not be of this tea in particular but Genmaicha’s in general. That said, this is one of the worst teas I have ever tasted. I tried steeping it several times, varying time and temperature, but it just tasted bad. In no way did I get peanut butter or mashmallow or even any taste vaguely tea like from this blend. I debated even reviewing this tea because I disliked it so much, but I felt as though I should warn people looking for a peanut buttery tea, unless you love Genmaicha I would avoid this one.
This is one of the most complex tea’s I’ve had the pleasure of tasting. Trying to put into words what a cup is like is trying to describe a day in the woods, so many elements come together to make that memory it’s not easy to tease out highlights. If you’ve read Whispering Pines description you know they were aiming for that sort of experience, and they certainly have achieved it here. It’s a spicy tea. The cloves are a bit heavy at the front, but once your pallet grows accustomed to such a strong flavor in a white tea you begin to find the other notes that round out the experience. The cedar is particularly interesting as I don’t think I’ve ever tasted cedar before, only smelled it. Here the cedar does a good job of grounding the tea and bringing you back around to the white tea base. I find the cinnamon gets lost in the cloves, but as you move through the cup that clears up.
While not something I’d drink daily, this is definitely a tea I want to keep in my cupboard for cold nights and warm memories!
