The Sleeping Bear Blend

I haven’t had this one in a while so I made a pot of it. It was very refreshing since I’ve had a lot of flavored teas recently. The subtle flavor of pine is just lovely with the buttery green tea.

Pretty sure my feed isn’t working here, but oh well.

This was a sad sipdown, but I appreciated the chance to try it (Thanks KallieBoo!). This is just a really clean, buttery, sweet green tea. It brightened a grey day a little bit even!

Pictures:
http://atinyteapot.tumblr.com/post/66498456759/the-sleeping-bear-blend-from-whispering-pines-tea

I’ve had this tea a few times without logging, my bad! Tonight i will though, and I’ll try to get a second steep in before bed too :)

So the dry leaves are a lovely mix of thin, poky pine needles and green tea leaves. The dry smell is quite faint, but fresh and a bit green and jasminy. I steeped for 1 and a half mins, and the resulting liquor is a bright sunny light yellow. The steeper smells of pine, Yay! The tea is very mild smelling on comparison, but still fresh

The first steep is pretty light, but I think more flavorful than previous cups. Maybe because I had a nice lower water temperature or a better ratio of leaves (almost a tablespoon for around 10 oz). Regardless, it is pretty good. The floral scent of very light jasmine wafts up and is present in the taste at the start, and a buttery, fresh warmth takes over. In the middle of the steep, a hint of pine comes out, cooling, like taking a breath of morning air in the forest. I’m not sure if I can detect the hint of citrus, but the cup is very refreshing and relaxing at the same time.

Overall, this is quite a delicious tea. Maybe I wasn’t quite in the mood for previous cups, but I can see the beauty in this one tonight. It is a light, subtle flavoring that blends wonderfully, but not one that smacks you in the face. Very pleased with this cup tonight :) i might even get the boyfriend to try a cup sometime, he thought it smelled pretty good :)

ETA – I made a second steep! I don’t think I’ll be awake enough to finish the cup, but the half I’ve had is really good, the pine really does come out in this one, but still meshes with the other flavors! So happy I have more of this tea, it provides a nice different spectrum of flavors!

My parents were supposed to have been on the road with the Uhaul a few days ago, but it is taking them longer than expected to get all packed up. Most of their house is empty now and the TV is all packed up, so they came to my house to have an evening break and watch some Stargate SG1.

I brewed this tea for my mother and sister, a different tea for myself, and coffee for my father and my husband. As my last note indicates, I brought this tea for them to sample a few nights ago. That time, I brewed it according to the package instructions for 1min30sec. This time, I was too busy serving people to be careful about brewing instructions. I steeped it for 3min. My mother didn’t recognize the tea at first and she let my father sample from her cup. He said it wasn’t bad (he didn’t like it last time and he has never liked any green tea or jasmine tea). So I was thinking, hey, this longer steep time must make a difference and I tried it for myself just now (for 2min30sec). And hey, what do you know, I like it better this way too! It’s much creamier and the pine needle flavor that is supposed to be reserved for second steepings is probably affecting the flavor too, though I don’t recognize it specifically. The jasmine flavor was obviously jasmine in a shorter steep, now it is more of a general sweet flavor that doesn’t give away it’s source without some contemplation.

Never fails to amaze me how a few seemingly trivial parameters can make such a big difference.

I was given a not-so-subtle hint to try this one out :P I didn’t think I was going to be capable of drinking more tea, but running out of lip balm tubes means having to stop. I also had wanted to resteep Yunnan’s Fable but I put the infuser basket in the sink to get it out of the way and ended up getting dish soap in it so, nevermind that for now. Bear tea it is!

This steeped up very light, but it has the nicest green hue to it. It smells like a forest, just faintly in the midst of a green tea flavor.

It just tastes so fresh. Sweet and fresh, with hints of butter. The imagery to go with this tea is just perfect to imagine while sipping. It reminds me of waking up early in the morning while camping. The grass is usually wet outside the tent and you can smell it, and the birds are chirping already.

This one is lovely, I don’t think I can say anything that’s as lovely about it as its own description though. I think if you read it, you’ll have to buy an ounce of this one too.

Thank you for sharing your definite tea masterpiece, Brenden!

You know how just when you think a tea can’t get any better? Then it does?

Yea well this is one of those. I have a feeling I will be through my 2oz in no time & will need more, MORE, MORE, MORE!!

gah it’s so good. Quite different this time, more of a light floral note, still earthy, light & so freakin good!

Thanks Brenden (I have to say I am impressed that your name is spelt this way, my brother’s is the same & you rarely see it spelt like this), for this amazing blend!!

Thank you Brenden for this sample tea!

I prepared this tea as Brenden recommended using 1 TB in a Gaiwan. The steep time was what I’d call immediate. Glad I had a nice little strainer to catch the pine needles that tried to escape.

There wasn’t a mention of what the green tea was, but when I tasted the tea, my mouth told my brain that the pine and tea was similar to the taste of a very good jasmine silver needle.

I’ve tasted some rather dull silver needles that have a dusky, murky flavor and that isn’t what this was.

You can almost sense a light effervescence.

There’s always something mesmerizing about this type of tea that takes me back to my childhood camping trips.

We camped less than two hours from home along the California Coast at Big Sur State Park http://www.bigsurcalifornia.org/images2/McWayFalls1.jpg . There were streams to swim and fish with huge boulders and deep pools of clear water which smelled fresh. This water, pine and rock scent is what I associate with tea like Sleeping Bear Blend.
The Ponderosa Pine, Redwood trees, Cypress and Oak created an earthy perfume that I associate with Puerh. Campfires at night, bacon and eggs over the woodfire in the morning…that’s my Lapsang Souchong tea frame of reference.

So much about drinking tea is also about memories and about how the tea makes you feel as a whole person.

I shared some of this tea in a tasting with my friend Eric the scientist (who likes to take tea into the mountains to drink when the weather is nice).
He loved it.
Thought the use of pine needles was brilliant.
This approval came from a plant nerd and is high praise indeed. (Eric likes to nibble plants that only he can identify while walking through the forest)

Lovely tea Brenden!

Another one from Rachel, thank you for sharing this with me!

I forgot what was in this tea, just by looking at it, I thought it was an herbal tea. I saw some pieces of green tea in there, but the needles far outweigh the green tea. As soon as I opened the bag I smelled a pine forest. Needles crushing underfoot, pine cones scattered across the ground, I could smell the pine sap dripping down the trees. It was beautifully crisp and quiet, like an early morning sunrise before the world wakes up.

What a lovely tea. The bancha gives a nice soft buttery taste. The pine needles aren’t strong in taste at all, they are light and crisp. I feel like there is a little hint of jasmine in here, more feeling than taste. Thank you Rachel for sharing this with me, it is lovely!

Another successful sample from MissB! Well, as successful as I can get with my nose stuff up again. I wouldn’t mind being a sleeping bear myself and just skipping the rest of winter!

From what I can taste of this, this tea is a nice refreshing green with a bit of buttery vegetal notes. There’s also more to it – like pine needles. I’ll have to resteep it!

Also I’ll try the last of it later when I can fully appreciate the nuances.

Our top-selling green tea blend is back in stock! Our June harvest White Pine was harvested from a grove near Lake of the Clouds in the Porcupine Mountains, Michigan on June 4th. This month’s harvest yields only 10 ounces of The Sleeping Bear Blend, so get yours while it lasts!

This harvest is even better than the last, with an indescribable sweetness brought out by a longer heating process!

http://whisperingpinestea.com/the-sleeping-bear-blend.html