Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Dark Chocolate, Honey, Malt, Chocolate, Cocoa, Dirt, Wood, Smooth, Bread, Fruity, Cherry, Sugarcane, Grapes, Mineral, Nutty, Roasted, Roasted Nuts, Caramel, Bark, Cacao, Grain, Toast, Spices, Graham Cracker, Earth, Autumn Leaf Pile
Sold in
Not available
Caffeine
High
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Tea Pet
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 0 sec 3 g 10 oz / 291 ml

From Our Community

2 Images

14 Want it Want it

16 Own it Own it

  • +1

63 Tasting Notes View all

From Whispering Pines Tea Company

This black tea from the Wu Yi mountains of China carries the boldest dark chocolate notes that I have ever come across in a tea! Slightly roasty with a sweet finish, this has quickly become one of my absolute favorite teas. The dry leaf aroma is pure dark chocolate and I commonly steep this in a pot with the lid open just to make my house smell like chocolate! Fujian Black Tea is the base tea in our Mint Chocolate Chip Black Tea!

About Whispering Pines Tea Company View company

Whispering Pines Tea Company is dedicated to bringing you the most original, pure, beautiful tea blends. We use only the highest quality ingredients available to create additive-free teas teas inspired by the pristine wilderness of Northern Michigan. Our main focus is on customer satisfaction and quality.

63 Tasting Notes

88
526 tasting notes

Thank you Blodeuyn for this surprise tea present!

This is another win from this company! I open this small package and reveal small delicate ebony shards. These little sticks carry a strong roasted dark cacao scent. I imagine WuYi as a granite rocky cliff with silver and black peaks. This mysterious place is shrouded with mist and overcast causing a gray scale effect. I picture wind blowing massive trees clinging to the rocky cliff faces causing them to sway from side to side like a sailboat caught in a storm. I view the WuYi region like this because their teas are a hurricane of a brew. They consist of dark, mineral, roast, cold, and sharp tones. These teas always have a bold brew that is alike the earths crust. The small black twigs I recieved followed suit, except, they gave me a small surprise. This maroon liquor had a decadent dark chocolate palette. This dessert flavor followed me throughout my steeping. I washed these small leaves once and brewed gong fu. I acquired a deep chocolate tone every steep and the background of black grapes creeped up on me. This is a wonderful tea, and I’m so happy to be able to experience it.

https://instagram.com/p/0vzbPqzGWq/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Flavors: Dark Chocolate, Grapes, Mineral

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec 4 g 3 OZ / 90 ML

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

94
71 tasting notes

Really good tea, one of my favorites of the Whspering Pines samples I got. Chocalate, malt, baked bread. Just to keep tabs on my drinking, I’m gonna need more of this, as well as some of the Golden Snail and Yunnan Gold Tips. They’re all fantastic black teas. I like this one far better than Laoshan Black, but in fairness to Verdant Tea, I had a cold the day I drank that sample and probably missed the complexity others noticed. I’m also pretty sure I under-leafed on that one. All in all, a really really good tea. No complaints. I am on the first steep, and others complain that it doesn’t resteep well. That’s disappointing, but not a dealbreaker or something I always expect of black teas. I continue to pick up peanut notes in many of these teas, but I seem to be the only one.

Edit: Brewed this Western style and the second steep is quite good. I did 3 minutes on the first, then 6. I probably could’ve done 2 and then 4 instead. It definitely has a lot of flavor left. So I don’t agree that this doesn’t work for resteeping. So far it’s working quite well.

Flavors: Chocolate, Cocoa, Dark Chocolate, Malt, Nutty, Roasted, Roasted Nuts

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

149 tasting notes

Continuing on with my chocolate heavy black tea day…
This is another sample I received from Dexter ( Thank you!).
Deep chocolate and so smooth… oh, this is good.
I did this one western style just like the other black today, since I haven’t had the time to sit down with my gaiwan. It’s so weird to not be using it, but at the same time, it’s really nice to have a full mug of something.
Yeah, this tea is definitely something I love… and, I do get that graham note that’s mentioned… it’s delicious. :D

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

85
772 tasting notes

This is a delicious example of a Fujian Black tea as a type. Bready and caramelly and just very nice. Took half of my pot to work in a tumbler (stands up to that treatment very well) and drank the other half in the morning while taking meds (deserves better than that treatment). Just a really good tea.

Made correctly this time with 3 teaspoons (1 tbsp) per 500 ml (2 cups).

ETA: Second steep was just as good, though I’m not going for a 3rd.

Flavors: Bread, Caramel

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 0 sec 3 tsp 17 OZ / 500 ML

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

82
4169 tasting notes

Thanks for the sale a while back, Kimquat! This certainly tastes like a Fujian. Somehow with this one, it seems like there is more fragrance to the dry leaves than there is flavor. The flavor is good, but this light amber cup is LIGHT. The caramel notes and the flavor that can only be found in a Fujian tea is there but it certainly isn’t a kick enough in the morning. This one might be lighter than the Laoshan Black, especially since I usually use one teaspoon with that one rather than the 1 1/2 teaspoons I used today. The leaves here do look larger and longer than the Laoshan though. I think I like the Jabberwocky better – it has more of this flavor profile but more depth (which is probably because it’s a blend of three teas). I’m happy to have tried this one anyway… and there is one serving left.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 tsp // 4 min after boiling // 3 min steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 6 min

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

93
103 tasting notes

Sip Down! Sad to see this one go. I’ve been drinking a lot of unidentifiable teas that I can’t review on steepster lately – not writing about the cup afterwards makes the drinking experience less rewarding. Need to put in another order with Whispering Pines so that I can start back on the tea drinking + thinking + writing equation.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

85
661 tasting notes

GCTTB

This is delicious. Love the chocolate notes. I don’t think I could tell this one apart from my Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong of Wu Yi Fujian Black Tea Spring 2014 from Yunnan Sourcing. Both are excellent teas!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

95
251 tasting notes

Having a lovely straight black this morning. This tea has notes of roasty dark chocolate and malt without much else to the flavor profile. It reminds me of Laoshan Black, but without the complexity of honey, grains, etc. and with a touch less cacao. I realize that makes it sound not as good, but it really is very tasty in its own way. Sometimes simple is best, and yet very satisfying this morning. Makes for a fine breakfast cuppa!

Flavors: Dark Chocolate, Malt, Roasted, Smooth

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

81
152 tasting notes

Nosegasm. More than the visceral “mmmm!” that spontaneously accompanies an exploratory inhale of a new tea, this was actually an “ooooh!” I think this is my highest rating ever for the brewed fragrance of a tea. Seriously as much as I wanted to taste it I was impelled to just continue inhaling it for a minute. In a sublime zen-pleasure kind of way.

Ok, moving on … I wanted to compare this to another Fujian today, Teavivre’s Bailin Gongfu. Brewed both at 3 minutes at recommended temps and quantities.

The Bailin Gongfu was more chewy and caramelly, and had a bit of a lychee note. The WP Fujian was more malty. Where the BG was chocolatey, the WP is a cocoa nib (as Dinosara noted) or much darker chocolate, as well as a noticeably lighter flavor and mouthfeel. The slight smokey note of the BG was absent in this one.

Both evolve well both with cooling down and on the second steep, though the BG held more flavor on the latter. The BG has a longer, richer aftertaste with a bit more astringency to it.

The WP Fujian maintains a malty, cocoa nose while the BG has as a bit of what I can only identify as a whisper of earl grey fragrance that I find in some non- earl grey teas. Why does that bergamotish perfume appear when i’m not expecting it?

Side by side tastings would’ve been a good move but I ended up brewing them sequentially by the cup to keep it simpler. Next time!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

83
314 tasting notes

Lewis & Clark TTB #15

Deep tarry aroma. The initial taste reminds me of walking in damp woods, but underneath is a rich mix of tar and tobacco and wood. The finish is long, but not overly powerful. As the tea cools, I’m left with mostly just the damp woods.

There is a lot going on here, but it doesn’t seem well-integrated: just a mix of flavors that don’t coordinate all that well. I’m not that fond of the leafy/tarry taste, though some of the other flavors are appealing.

While I’m not excited about the tea, someone whose tastes are different from mine might really like it, since it does have several things going for it.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.