Today I’m drinking tea to try to cut through the hazy, dizzy feeling from too many of my mother-in-law’s mimosas. My in-laws are a rowdy, touchy bunch that imbibes, as opposed to my silent, book-readng, tea-drinking clan. I’m not with my family today, so I have to channel them via tea.
This cup is a gentle white tea with flowery cinnamon notes. It’s like a summer morning in a flower-strewn prairie. The tea itself takes a backstage to the dainty main notes.
When I looked up this tea on the Whispering Pines site, the author talks about a cricket song dancing through a desert plain. I was super-hype that I’d come up with the “outside flowers-in-an-expanse” visual.
Were the Whispering Pines dude and I connected? Am I a psychic? Should I take up tarot reading or palmistry or numerology or astrology? Or maybe I could acquire a crystal ball? Where does one acquire a crystal ball? Ebay, as it turns out. It’s also possible to get pendulums, runes, and scrying stones.
I could become a full-fledged witch. I think both my families would be accepting. If they aren’t, they can throw back mimosas until they can handle it.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Whispering Pines Tea Company
Description
The summer air was dry and warm as I watched the sun set over the high deserts of Prescott, Arizona. I could see the monsoon rains forming in the distance and feel a chill in the air as the plants braced for what was to come. A soft breeze carried the aroma of desert sage, juniper, and mesquite across the open land. The manzanita painted crimson lines into the sandy ocean of a desert, perfectly matching the sunset. An owl flew across the darkening horizon and the lizards scurried into their places, decorated with wildflowers. The land was silent, for no creature was brave enough to stay out in this storm. As the storm rolled in and I turned to leave, I heard the soft chirp of a beautiful cricket. I smiled and wondered how such a seemingly small creature could fill the entire desert with just a simple song.
Cricket is a desert-inspired chai blend. The base is a sweet white tea with strong notes of sage, and it’s blended very delicately with safflower and elderberries. The final touch is adding our classic chai spice blend and to pull it all together, adding a small amount of rubbed sage. The finished blend is immensely sweet and delicate with smooth spice and warm sage notes. The aroma of desert berries and mesquite spice fill in the final pieces of the experience, creating a synthesis of flavors that can bring anyone to the high deserts.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Blackmint Oolong Blend from Whispering Pines Tea Company
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Whispering Pines Tea Company
Tea Description:
A warming blend of o’olong tea, mint and cinnamon! Crisp, smooth, minty perfection at its finest!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Blackmint Oolong Blend from Whispering Pines Tea Company threw me for a loop when I first tried it. I visited the website and looked under black tea blends, and found two with mint … one with an Assam base and one with a Lapsang Souchong Base. To tell the truth … this tea didn’t taste like either!
So I emailed the company for verification, and they got back to me promptly (I love it when a company makes themselves available promptly to their customers like this one does! It makes me feel comfortable doing business with a company when they’re there to answer questions … and they do so right away!) and they told me that Blackmint could be found in their Oolong section!
That surprised me, because while the tea base tasted smooth and had a thick, somewhat creamy mouthfeel the way dark Oolong teas do, it had a certain strong quality to it that I wouldn’t normally associate with an Oolong. This tea has a very pleasing, rich flavor that would satisfy even those who usually prefer black teas over Oolong. The flavor isn’t quite black tea-ish … but, it has a bolder flavor than many Oolong teas that I’ve tried.
And to be paired with the minty duo of spearmint and peppermint, it would need to have a strong character! The minty flavor is powerful, but, not overpowering. I love the way the mint and the Oolong work together – it makes a minty … creamy kind of taste that reminds me a bit of the creamy consistency of a minty milkshake (you know which one I’m talking about right? I passed by some golden arches yesterday and the sign in the window says they’re back for St. Patrick’s Day!)
The cinnamon in this tea … is less noticeable. Perhaps this is because the mint and the Oolong are both so prominent that the cinnamon plays more of a background note, but, I tasted some earthiness from the cinnamon but not so much of that zesty cinnamon edge. However, I can’t say that I missed the cinnamon because I found this tea to be so enjoyable just the way it was.
A really delightful blend … I’m really glad I got the opportunity to try it.
Lemon Green Tea from Whispering Pines Tea Company
Tea Type:
Green Tea
Where To Buy:
Whispering Pines Tea Company
Production Description:
Lemon Green Tea makes for a deliciously simple morning wake-up drink, and goes especially well with a drizzle of honey as a sweetener. This buttery-green tea blends three different styles of green tea with the perfect amount of lemongrass to create a blend that is delicious hot and quenching and reviving iced.
Tasters Review:
Oh! What a lovely combo of green teas this has! I totally agree with the product description saying that the green tea has a buttery texture to it, too! Very nice.
The Lemongrass is perfectly assisting the green teas, here! I wouldn’t change the ratio at all!
This is smooth and flavorful. It’s very delicious.
I’d also agree with the hint of pine needle taste – more-so – as it cools at room temp for a bit and more towards the end of the sip.
Another winner – NOT to be passed up – from Whispering Pines – YUMMO!
Jasmine Coconut Green Tea from Whispering Pines Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Pouchong & Rooibos
Where to Buy: Whispering Pines Tea Co.
Tea Description:
Jasmine Coconut Green Tea combines the warm fragrant smell of jasmine scented green tea and red rooibos with freshly toasted organic coconut flakes for a smooth tropical tea. Deliciously perfect for any time of the day! Best enjoyed hot.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
OK … whoa! I did NOT expect to like this as much as I do! Wow!
I don’t know exactly what I was thinking when I started to brew this blend, I guess I thought: “jasmine and coconut seem like a pretty odd combination,” and even as I sip this, my mind still seems to think that the two components would not make a compatible pair, but, my taste buds think differently! My mind can’t quite wrap itself around the thought of a Jasmine Coconut Green Tea.
But, it tastes amazing!
I think that the reason this works so well is that the jasmine is a lighter taste – it doesn’t smack you over the head with its heady floral essence – and so it mingles very well with the creamy, luscious taste of the coconut, and neither taste overwhelms the sweet notes of the Pouchong tea.
There is a well-achieved balance with this tea … at least when it comes to the tea leaves, coconut and jasmine. I don’t taste a lot of the rooibos, and that’s just fine with me. I suspect that the rooibos may lend a certain lightness to the overall cup, and perhaps a nutty earthiness as well, but, these are very faint characteristics to the tea, so much so that I hardly notice them at all.
But when it comes to the Pouchong tea, the coconut and the jasmine, I taste each note, but they all seem to work in harmony with one another. It’s one of those teas that tastes so good that you’ll want to keep drinking it long after you’ve finished the cup … so I recommend making a pot of the tea so you can fill ‘er up once you’ve emptied your cup. You’ll be really glad you did!
Jasmine Coconut Green Tea from Whispering Pines Tea Company
Tea Type:
Rooibos/Green Tea Blend
Where To Buy:
Whispering Pines Tea Company
Product Description:
Jasmine Coconut Green Tea combines the warm fragrant smell of jasmine scented green tea and red rooibos with freshly toasted organic coconut flakes for a smooth tropical tea. Deliciously perfect for any time of the day! Best enjoyed hot.
Tasters Review:
Whispering Pines told me the green tea used in this blend is a Light Fujian Pouchong.
The ‘green’ tea leaves look different from leaf to leaf. The coconut shavings are smaller than you might see in a bulk section or in a Bob’s Red Mill’s type bag, for example. I can also see the rooibos. At first glance – it ALMOST looks like there COULD BE both green and regular rooibos in this mix! It’s a bit hard to tell this last assumption about the Rooibos because there is so little of it in there…so…it could just be regular rooibos, I guess.
The green tea is a nice ‘even-steven’ type taste inbetween a slight grassy-green, slight sweet-green, slight vegetal-green. The Jasmine is subtle – thankfully! Just the right amount for my palate. The coconut is pretty amazing. It’s not like a stereotypical-tropical type coconut but a soothing, creamy-type instead. I do like this difference!
With the description and ingredients list I thought I would like this one fine-and-dandy but I actually like it even more than I thought I would! This is incredibly smooth. This is a nice sipping tea OR a nice gulping tea!
Whispering Pines…an Artisan of blended teas! Nice!