Whispering Pines Tea Company

This is the first of 7 teas I ordered from Whispering Pines, that I have tasted. First I would like to note I am a newbie, an amateur, so my tasting notes will reflect that of a novice. Second, I keep hearing from seasoned Chinese Tea drinkers that puerh is no good to drink unless it is at least 10 years old – any younger than that, you will not get much flavor or body. With that said — each time I try a raw puerh, I seem to get the same flavor results & thought = green/bitter. After drinking the 2016 Silver Fox, I definitely got similar notes – I went through 6 steeps. At first it started out very bitter but with each steep it dissipated. It tasted very “green” and around steep 4 I noticed a dry sensation in my mouth. The tea was not bad at all – but I wonder what it will be in 5, 10, 15 years down the line? The question is should I purchase another cake to store? I will have to go through a few more sessions to determine that for sure.

I’ve been holding off on this review for most of the day, but I finally decided to just go ahead and post it. This is apparently intended to be Whispering Pines’ house green tea, the sort of basic tea one may generally refer to as a “daily drinker.” I do not know much about this tea’s origin-the Whispering Pines website did not go into specifics-but I’m willing to bet this tea is Chinese in origin. A glance at the leaves revealed that this is a Bi Luo Chun, so this has to be Chinese, right? Teas of this type traditionally come from Jiangsu Province, but these days they also come from Yunnan, Sichuan, Zhejiang, and even Fujian Provinces. If I had to place its origin, I would guess Yunnan Province, but beyond asking the vendor directly, it’s not like I can be sure. Regardless of this tea’s origin, I found it to be a basic, pleasant, drinkable green tea.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. I usually do not rinse green teas, but I decided to do so here. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 175 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 11 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 35 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of grass, asparagus, bamboo, sorghum, and smoke. After the rinse, I detected wood and straw. The first infusion brought out hints of nuts and spinach. In the mouth, I detected mild notes of smoke, asparagus, grass, straw, wood, bamboo, and sorghum underscored by traces of nuts and spinach. Subsequent infusions brought out spinach, chestnut, hazelnut, seaweed, mandarin orange, lime zest, pine, green pea, corn husk, and mineral impressions. The later infusions were dominated by straw, mineral, seaweed, spinach, and wood notes underscored by subtle smoke, pea, grass, and citrus impressions.

This was not a bad tea. It would most definitely do the trick as a reliable, basic house green tea. I, however, had difficulty giving it my full attention over the course of a session. In truth, I found it kind of predictable. It did not surprise me much at all. I expect a lot out of the offerings from Whispering Pines Tea Company, so maybe I’m being somewhat harsh, but I just don’t think this tea compares to many of their other offerings. Also, I feel that while it is a quality green tea, I think it may be a hair too expensive for what it is. In the end, I would say that this tea is worth a try, but there are better teas of this type out there, and it is certainly not representative of the best this particular vendor has to offer.

It’s hard to believe this white tea compressed with snow chrysanthemum is almost ten years old now! I bought it all the way back when it was first pressed, in my vety first Whispering Pines order. Though it’s lost some of the pungency of the chrysanthemum flowers, it’s matured insanely well over the last ten years. The liquor is thick and syrupy with a very mouth coating quality, though it feels quite soft (and dare I say “fuzzy”) on the palate. It’s soothing with a pleasantly medicinal and herbal taste. I get notes of aged orange peel/chenpi, tree bark, ginseng, and crunchy Autumn leaves primarily. Though I’m glad I’ve had restraint in not drinking through it so quickly, I’m also really glad it’s not been neglected in my stash either. Tasting it age has been both delicious and educational!!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-_PYo_umrm/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPOIe6WdhPQ

Geek Steep S3E13 – Cowboy Bebop

Gongfu!

This is the tea I ended up drinking during my rewatch for this episode. I kind if picked it for a few reasons, but the big one was the music in the series. I mean, the score for Cowboy Bebop fucking slaps and is, arguably, one of the best parts of the series. Certainly my favourite part of the series.

Every time I had a steep that timed out really well with the score it just felt like this perfectly paired, cinematic punctuation mark to the show. Especially for the fifth episode, which (without spoiling it) is one of the best moments in the series. It was drama, it was beautiful, and it was very delicious. That highly aromatic, kind of medicinal yet floral yet menthol yet citrusy profile of the tea just worked so damn well.

As we discussed in the full pod episode, this isn’t one of my favourite animes but I do think this ended up being one of my favourite anime pairings that I’ve explored since we started Geek Steep.

Gongfu!

This was my mid afternoon session today, and my first Gongfu session in the new apartment! That’s pretty cool; though in keeping with this year’s New Year’s resolution I tried not to think too much about picking the ‘perfect’ tea for the occasion and instead I just picked a good tea.

This chrysanthemum infused tea is thick and medicinal, with similar notes to chenpi, along with full bodies hot hay and floral notes. It’s coating on the throat and soothing, with an underlying sweetness. There’s still a fair bit of unpacking to go, but I have enough unpacked to #gongfu now, and the tea desk setup is looking pretty solid!!

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B8pGmqug7xI/

I wasn’t sure if I’d like the white desk over my old one, but I think it makes the space feel a lot brighter!

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciVfmcrbkqU

Another one that I was just really craving this week!

Smooth, full bodied and heavy liquor; kind of dense and syrupy. I did this one up as a Western mug and it came out very potent; soothing medicinal/camphor notes, lots of chrysanthemum, a bit of a basil like herbaceous quality, and a bit of a cooked down orange note. Reallllyyyyy good. Very relaxing.

Just realized that, without meaning to, I’ve basically been “checking in” on this tea yearly – and now I’ve got a pretty cool record of the flavour progression. Only thing is that I seem to have brewed a different prep method each time… Oops…

Today’s cup was Grandpa Style at work; my general workplace steeping method ‘go to’. Definitely stronger notes coming from the florals – distinct chysanthemum, with orange-y undertones comparable to chenpi, as I’ve observed from other chrysanthemum teas as of late. Some of that same sort of dandelion profile; and malt/hay. This brewed thick, and strong – perhaps a touch stronger than I was desiring? Not a bad Grandpa contender; but I think I preferred this with other prep methods overall.

I’m really delighted with how this cake has been aging!

I brewed myself up a mug of it probably about a week ago, and it was just such a pleasant cup. Very, very thick mouthfeel and rich flavour. I’d describe it as this malt and straw mixed general profile accented by a floral dandelion kind of taste that, although it isn’t the strongest flavour note, shines top to bottom in the sip – but especially in the top. Definitely one of those teas that hugs you from the inside out.

Midday cuppa.

I definitely steeped this one way longer than I had originally intended to. When I saw how intensely, deeply orange the liquor was I knew I was in for an experience – I just thought it’d be a bad one. I expected it to be pretty bitter, but it actually wasn’t. The flavour WAS really intense though. It was very savory/herbaceous with a mix of really strong, dominant chrysanthemum, dandelion, rosemary, pine/wood, and hay notes.

I actually liked how unabashedly herbaceous this tasted! It was brilliant, and different and very comforting. I’ve enjoyed that element of this tea in the past, it was just ten fold here.

Mmmm…

I’m really loving the complexities of this one.

I just made it as a simple, late night Western mug but I feel like I got such a great array of flavours even with that straight forward preparation. The sip started off with sweet hay notes and hints of white peach, and it sort of evolved into this mix of gentle spice notes, herbaceous rosemary/thyme, driftwood. It finished with a very clean, crisp soft honey note, and the entire time all of this had smooth undertones of very floral chrysanthemum. It was both very relaxing, and also quite engaging because of the complexities. I very much enjoyed it.

Western style tea pot!

Is it wrong to admit that I blindly bought this cake just because I love the aesthetic look of it so much? Like, I was pretty sure I’d enjoy the taste BUT visually this is just so stunning.

- Medium to full bodied flavour
- Notes of hay from the white base
- Floral undertones; chrysanthemum, gardenia?
- Also very herbaceous with strong rosemary notes
- And a bit of a woody/pine quality
- Overall does a great job of delivering a smooth profile that evokes the feeling of nature

I can’t wait to try this one Gong Fu because if it’s this fascinatingly nuanced and unique as a Western styled brew I can’t wait to see the fascinating layers of flavour it’ll have Gong Fu! I’m glad I enjoyed this one a lot, on top of it just being so pretty to look at.

The first raw/sheng pu’er I’ve tried, and the second 100g cake I’ve purchased. (The first one I ever got, as a present, was the Ontario pu’er 100g cake from WPTC.) This is also the first tea cake I’ve ever attempted to crack apart. I think I did ok, although of course I did break a few tea leaves. This cake doesn’t seem so tightly compacted that it’s going to be hard to break some off for a cup of tea. The leaves are beautiful, of course, all twisted and varying in color from a light silvery color to dark walnut brown.

Since I’m still new to pu’er, I decided to follow someone else’s steepings on here as close as I could—first steep at 5 sec with 6.5 g of leaves and 5 oz water, though I skipped doing a rinse; the leaves I managed to get off were individual and not in a chunk, so I felt it would be unnecessary to do a rinse.

The dry leaves smelled amazing and the wet leaves did as well, with little difference between the two that I noticed. A nice floral aroma, sweet, perhaps more like hay or grass. The tea brewed up a pale green, similar to a silver needle tea I recently had. It actually tastes very similar, too, although the floral notes are stronger and it seems sweeter than the silver needle. Not a trace of bitterness, happily.

Second steep of about 10 sec. Tastes similar to the first cup, not much difference that I can tell. Third steep ~15 sec. This one has a more sour note to it, possibly the grass flavor I have seen others mention? Fourth steep ~20 sec. Grassy note is gone; back to the sweeter, more floral green tea taste. Fifth steep ~25-30 sec. Touch of the sour note again. Otherwise, the flavor is slightly fainter than before. Six steep ~40-45 sec. Tastes much like the first cup, with a faint hint of the grass.

I received this in JakeB’s sale a while back — a whole cake! Thanks JakeB! I’m not sure if I tried this before because there is a piece missing, or if I just removed a piece to send to someone else. It would be surprising if I didn’t write a tasting note for a tea the first time I sipped it…. especially as this is the highest rated tea on Steepster at the moment (whoa!) Sadly nothing is special about it, so I probably had it before but didn’t write a note. My rating might drag it down from a 92 though, despite so many glowing reviews from other Steepsterers. I’m not sure if I’m steeping this wrong but this seems like your average ripe pu-erh… very smooth and dark but not as dark as I love my pu-erh to be. A smooth pu-erh seems like black tea to me (that somehow never gets astringent) but my favorite pu-erh needs something MORE there. Of course I’m very happy when none of those icky pu-erh flavors are there. All three steeps had relatively the same flavor, despite vast differences in steeping. I’m missing the magic that others see in this one though! Ah well, different tastes.
Steep #1 // 16 minutes after boiling // rinse // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 1/2 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // MANY minute steep

Edited to add: Honestly, I lowered the rating on this one until it was among the 90 rated teas and wasn’t the only tea as a 91! (Yesterday it was 92!) But my original rating would have been 80 anyway.

Great! Nice, smooth and soothing with a long-lasting session.

this good i love it

Creamy, woody and sweet. It’s the perfect way to spend this afternoon working from home. Sometimes I get a little dark mulch, sometimes a little raisin. Sometimes, I get a little cocoa.

I first had this about one year ago, and it blew me away from the start. The burst of a very vibrant, sweet-ish scent I could sit and inhale for an hour, and the combination of malty and honeyed flavors (to my taste buds – I am a fairly novice tea drinker) made this an instant favorite, and the one I choose when wanting to kill a good amount of time relaxing with a cuppa.

Over the next year, I tried many other Yunnans and blacks, thinking that I might find something comparable to the Golden Snail. So far, nothing even comes close. This tea is otherworldly, smooth and so layered. Stands up to repeated steeps, too.

Along with Earl Gold and Imperial Gold Buds, this tea has solidified Whispering Pines as my ultimate go-to for spectacular teas. Brenden is on to something really special, and I am happy to be able to experience it. Peerless.

Nice tea with a slightly different profile from the typical.
Nose; light floral, honey, sweet potato, slight koh ( incense ).
Palate; more delicate than most, sweet potato, butter, slight umami, almost a dancong sweetness and a light mineral character.

Smooth and sweet daily drinker, this light ripe would be a good introduction to shou.

The nose on this was what really got my attention, as it made me think of the aromas of a ramen restaurant with the vibrant umami aroma of nori (seaweed). The body seemed more medium while the lower-grade Ontario was full-bodied. Definitely a good-quality shou puerh, but I’ll need to come back to it and pay a bit more attention to the flavors.