Whispering Pines Tea Company

Morning birthday cuppa yesterday. I was so happy to open the cupboard and see this still unopened, it felt like a gift. The tiny dry leaves were so beautiful, brown and yellow and places in between… and dense! I stopped at 5g in my 5oz pot, where 7g is my go-to for most things. The very first steep poured a crisp chestnut color, noticeably reddish. Later steeps lost the red and were more brown.

This little love needed no warm-up before the magic happened — the first steep was a symphony. And it seemed every flavor was detectable on the nose and in the mouth… remarkable. Reminded me of golden snails with extra tucked-away gems to discover. Toast, roast, umami, saltines, nuts, brown bread, seaweed, cocoa, malt, molasses… ripe strawberry and caramel at the bottom of the cup. Incredibly smooth. Some tannins finally popped in the third or so, and they were as delightful as everything else.

Because they were closed yesterday, we are heading over to Callisto Tea House in Pasadena today, for a gong fu session (and probably some plant-based goodies, who am I kidding). I’m pretty excited to share some tea outside my home and see what I learn today.

Visited my family this past week, and my parents still have this tea in a ceramic canister in the back of their pantry. To my surprise, this tea has aged really well since I first left it there years ago. It’s taken on more of a floral front on the dry leaf, which carries itself to the brew. Almost thought that it was jasmine tea for a minute! I grampa’d and gongfu’d this tea all throughout the day during my visit, super content with each steep. There was a bit of astringency with the earlier steeps each time I brewed, but by the third of fourth time around most of the bitter sting was flushed out. Maybe it’s good that I slept on this tea, it’s only gotten better with age.

Had the last of my ~5 months old sample this morning, and the bergamot was… missing. Hmm. It remained a solid and tasty black snail, but that glorious bouquet had up and spirited away.

It makes me a bit nervous about the four(!) ounces I just received. I had moved the earlier batch to a sealed glass container; I’ll leave this next one in its mylar, drink studiously, and hope for the best.

By best I mean gloriously nekkid barrel-aged angels bergamoting all over the place. Fingers crossed.

Bergamot has settled quite a bit since I first opened this bag. Super lush and velvety. J’adore.

Jeezo.

I sniffed the open bag and started laughing, as I haven’t been this overwhelmed by bergamot oil since I was a kid and every sip of Earl Grey tasted like an exotic perfume.

This feels like travel — waking up and teetering down creaky steps to breakfast in the UK. The proprietor’s homemade marmalade and fresh brown bread, hoofed back from the bakery before sunrise; a barely-sweet mug of cocoa on the generations-old oak table; that cozy buzz before heading out into an overcast day of wood beams and lichen-stone and drizzle and history.

Sipdown 47

This definitely got more delicious as it got older and closer to the bottom of the bag. Really lovely combination of woody cedar and smooth, creamy vanilla.

The first time I tried this I didn’t care for it, so I stashed it in a drawer and forgot about it. That was about 2 years ago, and I just dug it back out again. With some aging, the vanilla has become so strong, with just a touch of cedar. The oolong is bright green and fresh, with a pop of lilac. Really interesting base combined with the vanilla and cedar.

A truly delightful tea!

Warm smell was baked bread with a subtle chocolate note.

Brew was dark mahogany and deceptively rich. Texture was layered and smooth and full.

Taste was different than the smell in the first steep: very sweet. Baked fruit of some kind. Hard to pin down what it truly compares to. I love that in a ripe.

Second steep was more of the same but with a slightly silkier texture and more of a milk chocolate vibe. Very sweet with a savory rich undertone.

Third steep: More of the same with slightly less texture. Same persistent sweet note that goes in and out of being milk chocolatey or some kind of baked fruit kind of quality.

Fourth steep: more of the same even still, which was great, though even less texture. However, the taste was still on point.

Fifth steep: Soft and Minerally. Leaves are done (for my preferences).

I did push this one pretty good each steep, so I didn’t get as many steeps as is maybe possible. I had 10-11g in a clay pot and started with an ~ 30s, 20s, 30s, 1 min approach. The fine grade of leaf had mostly given up the goods by this point, which I’m more than thankful for! The brews were full of delicious complexity and texture. Very tasty and delightful experience with some gentle cha qi.

Extremely interesting and compelling brew!

I put like 10-12g in a clay pot and hit it hard. Warm smell was very unique, so I knew something excellent was incoming.

The brew is super smooth and rich, with a lot going on. Thick and textured. There’s definitely fruity and vanilla notes to the taste, but it’s not overly sweet per se. It’s more darkly rich with bright notes dancing around the core richness. Complex and delightful.

6 steeps of ripe perfection. Nothing to say other than that this tea is really fucking good. 10/10. It’s better than most offerings from larger tea vendors.

Found this sample tucked away in a tin in the back of my cupboard. wasn’t entirely sure what blend it was until i saw the iconic patterned morel mushroom bits. It has been a long time since this tea was sampled out to me, but I was excited to dive into it.

After a quick rinse and a couple of flash steeps it’s clear that this tea is still kickin’. Silky smooth without being too muddy, the shou is a good base to match the morel’s umami. This tea is without a doubt, savory. There’s a hint of cinnamon, herb, and petrichor that marries the mushroom in a way that made me think of beef stroganoff. But in a tasty way. each infusion of the leaves made a thick soup (almost literally here lol) that I thoroughly enjoyed, despite it’s forgotten about storage.

Did I pick out the morel mushroom pieces and cook them with my quinoa that night? You bet your shou pu I did.

I had a small cup left of this swap from Shae, and it brewed up sweet and light, like vanilla cotton candy. What an enjoyable cup, I wish it was available on the Whispering Pines web site. Thanks for sharing Shae!

It’s always nice to get tea from Whispering Pines, since shipping costs from the U.S. to Canada are so high. Thanks to Daylon for the generous sample! I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of water at 195F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is hard to pin down, with elements that remind me of cranberry, grape, hay, malt, tobacco, tomato vine, and wood. It smells like a wild Yunnan tea, if that’s helpful. The first steep has notes of earth, forest floor, minerals, grapes, squash, honey, hay, malt, and wood. The next steep is sweeter, with molasses, tobacco, bread, red grapes, cranberries, pine, and maybe some spices. In the third and fourth steeps, I get bread, honey, sweet potato, raisins, hay, malt, cream, pine, earth, smoke, wood, and minerals, and the tea is a bit drying. The aftertaste is particularly sweet, though this is a savoury tea overall. I get berry and cherry notes in the next couple steeps, and the tea is a bit sweeter. As the session goes on, the tea becomes more like a standard Yunnan tea, with notes of bread, honey, pine, tannins, malt, and wood. The final steeps feature malt, wood, tannins, minerals, honey, and raisins, with some red grape sneaking in on the longer steeps.

This is a rustic, wild Yunnan tea that is nonetheless nuanced and complex. Its sweet, earthy flavours really do evoke a forest, particularly in the first few steeps, and I had fun trying to detect everything that was going on. I don’t usually gravitate toward these types of teas, but would highly recommend this one.

No one has rated this tea yet????

I ordered this several months ago but just now opened the packet. Fujian teas are a favorite in general, and Golden Monkey is my top choice. This one from Whispering Pines is right up there. It has a smooth mouthfeel, and a slightly more complex flavor than I am used to. There were some distinct notes there that with my stupid dead nose I could not identify. Maybe raisin? As the tea cooled it gained a slightly astringent note at the end of the sip. I usually never add sweetener to my tea (I’m diabetic) but I added just a couple of drops of honey and that was lovely. Glad I have more of this one to enjoy.

Untamed. There are notes here that remind me of deep forests. Mineral notes are present like in most well-crafted Wuyi oolongs but this one has a sense of clarity. Sometimes sweet like honey or honeysuckle. The longer the leaves infuse the heavier the charcoal notes become. The mouthfeel is smooth.

For the sipdown prompt, “a tea paired to music.”

I don’t, in general, turn on music (crazy, I know) but after decades of living with chronic migraine I’m just sort of used to it. But I put on some Emancipator this afternoon to provide some mellow and relaxing vibes while I do some manga scanlation work.

I had a sample of this tea, I believe acquired from Ost from a cupboard sale back in 2018 (thanks, Ost!) that I just dumped in a cold brew jar and left overnight, and am sipping on now. It is delicious… has those hay and flower pollen notes I typically get from white teas, but it also has a distinct honeyed apricot flavor going on as well.

Hello everyone, how are things? It’s been ages since I have contributed anything of note to Steepster. A lot has gone on this year, and I just haven’t had the time or the motivation to do much. Needless to say, the seemingly infinite backlog has grown, and while I have some free time, I wanted to post a new review or two. I’m starting off with a tea I thought I added to the database but apparently didn’t. This tea was first offered by Whispering Pines in either 2020 or 2021 as a higher grade counterpart to the Fujian Silver Needle they started carrying on a recurring basis. I think the pouch I purchased came from the spring 2021 harvest, but I have no way of being sure of that. Looking back over my session notes, I failed to record the production year. I also can no longer find any information about this tea online. I finished the only pouch of this tea that I purchased in either late 2021 or right around the start of this year.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After giving 6 grams of the loose tea buds a 10 second rinse in 190 F water, I kicked off the fun part of any drinking session with a 10 second infusion in 4 fluid ounces of 190 F water. 18 additional infusions followed. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minutes, 1 minutes 15 seconds, 1 minutes 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and 30 minutes. Note that the water temperature was kept at 190 F throughout the entirety of session.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea buds produced pleasant aromas of cinnamon, pine, straw, peanut, and eucalyptus. After the rinse, fresh aromas of almond, butter, cream, and hay appeared, though I detected subtler chestnut and marshmallow scents too. The first proper infusion then introduced a subtle vanilla scent. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented delicate notes of moss, cream, honeydew, cantaloupe, butter, oats, and sugarcane that were chased by hints of almond, peanut, pine, vanilla, straw, and eucalyptus. The majority of the subsequent infusions gradually added aromas of moss, basil, oats, parsley, and plum in addition to a noticeably stronger vanilla scent. More prevalent and immediately detectable impressions of vanilla, almond, and peanut emerged in the mouth alongside soft mineral, marshmallow, plum, parsley, white grape, steamed milk, cinnamon, watermelon, and carambola notes. Interesting hints of chestnut, hay, apricot, white peach, grape leaf, snap pea, apple, basil, pear, and golden kiwi lingered around the fringes. As the tea faded, the liquor continued to emphasize notes of minerals, cream, butter, peanut, almond, moss, watermelon, and vanilla that were chased by increasingly elusive hints of pear, honeydew, cinnamon, basil, straw, pine, oats, parsley, carambola, white grape, and marshmallow.

After finishing my final session with this tea, I was as blown away as I was after concluding my initial exploratory session. I had always read that truly high end Fujian Silver Needles should never be grassy and should emphasize balance, subtlety, depth, and complexity of savory, earthy, vegetal, and fruity and/or floral notes. That is precisely what this tea did. It was a challenging yet thoroughly enjoyable and impressive offering that provided tons of exotic and unexpected aromas and flavors. If there ever were a tea not suitable for beginners, then this was certainly it. I’m glad I took the opportunity to try it.

Mastress Alita’s Monthly Sipdown Challenge
June 2022 → A pricey tea

This is my priciest non-caffeinated tea, so far as I can tell, and it really is remarkable. I was excited about it when I first saw the listing and bought a couple of small pouches to try. I don’t think it’s still available, but I do hope it comes back at some point.

The liquid is much lighter than I expected. It definitely steeps up like an herbal blend. The flavor and aroma is mostly bittersweet chocolate, which I love. It’s almost too bitter, but manages to keep itself on the side of fancy dark chocolate rather than falling over into bitter dandelion brew territory. It does have that earthy quality from the dandelion, but it lends more to the complexity rather than tasting like straight dirt (as some dandelion herbals do). It seems to get richer as it cools, a nice surprise. This is one of those rare teas that I can drink without any additions. In fact, I think I might almost prefer it that way. I added a bit of honey to this cup, but it overwhelmed the flavor a bit.

This was a freebie sample with my Whispering Pines order. I under leafed it a bit and that didnt’ hurt it at all. It is a pretty smooth tea. No jagged edges of bitterness nor sharp edges of astringency. Without a sense of smell, I get no particular flavor profile, but it was very enjoyable. When I make my next order (sometime around Christmas?) I may grab a couple of ounces of this one if it’s available. I think I’ll finish the sample off as a cold brew since it seemed brighter somehow as it cooled.

My new order from Whispering Pines arrived over the weekend. I brewed a pot of this on Saturday afternoon. I was a little disappointed. There was definitely an astringent note. That smoothed out as the tea cooled. I may have over leafed it. I will try it again. I may try it iced too, since it was better for me when it cooled.