Westholme Tea Company

Gongfu!

Especially in the first few steeps, the tea starts off with a lightly tingly sensation on the tongue from the peppercorns – like a good kind of static electricity in your mouth. The flavour is brisk and woody with a smooth, sultry sort of pine smoked weaved throughout. Very, very savory as well with a really intense szechuan peppercorn flavour that stays with the tea well after the tingly, numbing sensation has passed in those early infusions. Y’all know I have a profound love for smoked teas so it’s no secret this a blend entirely up my alley, but the use of szechuan in tea like this is so incredibly inspired that I feel everyone should give this tea a try even if you aren’t a lover of lapsang or other smoky teas.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAv3o9sO9LI/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcmxwa4nxAM

Gongfu!

Turns out I wasn’t the only one enjoying the rain yesterday as my session was crashed by not one, not two, but THREE adorable little snails!

In between watching these little cuties, I enjoyed the occasional cherry tomato and steeps of this blend of Lapsang Souchong (a forever favourite), Keemun, and Sichuan Peppercorns while basking in the cool air and light rainfall. Everything sort of just clicked together into an all-around ethereally sensory sort of moment. This black tea has such a woody, savory smoke note to it but it also tastes so distinctly of the peppercorn too and that really amplifies the unctuous savory profile and overall mouthwatering umami that just envelopes the whole palate. You even get just a hint of that unique tingly “buzz” from the peppercorns, which layers in a whole new dimension to the session past just taste.

Tomatoes and smoked teas are just a match made in heaven. Doubling down on the umami with this pairing is like setting off an explosion in your mouth. It’s culinary, it’s elevated, and it’s also just surprisingly kind of fun and joyful. With the aromas of fresh, clean, rain-soaked soil and foliage bleeding over into the experience, I just felt so perfectly relaxed and at peace. This is 100% one of those tea sessions that will live in my head rent free from years to come that, truly, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fully recreate.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyJgzLRu1SD/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNKi7Up4Rck

Gongfu!

I spent yesterday afternoon at Marika’s house having tea and just catching up. It was so nice to spend some time with someone during this holiday break. It’s honestly been very quiet in my apartment (the roommate is in China for the next few months), and I’m actually getting kind of bored…

This was the first tea we drank (we drank so many), and it’ll probably be the most detailed of these tasting notes because I got tea drunk so fucking fast. Between that and the good conversation I wasn’t exactly keeping good tabs on tea tasting notes. This is such a gem of a tea, though! Gentle roast, but so much longevity to the leaves. We probably got six or seven steeps which is A LOT for a green tea. Notes of brown rice or even manoomin with its subtle-y marshy undertones in addition to that cozy toastiness. Also hazelnuts, chestnuts, and just a little bit of a crisp leafy green kind of vibe. A fancy lettuce of some kind, perhaps.

Gongfu!

Steeping up a session of Quail’s Plume this afternoon! This roasted green tea is one of the Canadian grown teas I picked up from Westholme back in May!! It’s really intriguing to me how there are so many similarities in taste between this tea and White Mist, Westholme’s signature white tea. Both have a slight cocoa note and a crisp snow pea vegetal freshness. At the same time, there are of course striking differences; the gentle roast adds a really warm golden hazelnut note and I get an additional array of vegetal flavours like bean sprouts and blanched edamame. It’s a really smooth cup and, as someone who tends to stay a little more distanced from greener tasting teas, I found myself especially pulled towards the dominant notes of bean sprouts that were especially rich in the third and fourth steeps!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ct4nMOtOvyV/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF035q-oBYQ

This was the second tea we were served while at Westholme. Not one of the Canadian grown teas, but just one of straight teas they import from other places around the world. I thought that Victor brewed this one up quite intensely, and I actually loved how rich and tannic the infusion was with brisk and grizzly notes of malt, sweet potato and starch, leather, bitter baker’s chocolate, and plum skins.

However, I could see a few others in our tour group (including my mom) struggling with the astringency/bite of blend – especially comparatively to the white tea we had just drank. Thankfully, this tea was served with an assortment of pastries including a really delicious strawberry and apricot shortbread. The buttery pastry helped cup through some of those more intense notes, and I think it ended up making for a pleasant cup for all of us around.

Westholme describes this as “accessible”, which I can see since it’s smooth and fairly easy to drink. It doesn’t stand out as particularly good – brisk, slightly toasted, a sort of classic tea profile that I associate with Tetley teabags. I would expect more from names like “Royal” and “golden” but for me, this is just fine. Fun to try so thanks for sharing Sil!

When I was in Montreal I tried both smoked and spiced maple syrup and they were delicious. The spiced was packaged better for travel to bring it home so I got a jar. Today, I had woken up early as a friend swung by on her way to New York to ask me to a bridesmaid. Since I was awake, we decided to make French toast topped with bananas and whipped cream to go with the spiced maple syrup. It was sooo good and made even better by this tea, which Sil kindly gave me. Thank you!

This tea is mild and smooth. Slight smoke. Syrupy but with a darker depth as opposed to a caramel or honey sweetness.

Check out the pic of my breakfast here: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChPb-73umkG/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

This was the other tea from Westholme that my coworker brought back for us to try. She was a huge fan of this tea, but for me it made less of an impression that the white tea. I’d describe the taste as warming, woody, a little nutty and maybe just a smidge malty? However, overall I just felt like this was less flavourful than the white tea and a tiny bit flat/muted.

Gongfu!

Happy (belated) Canada Day! In honor of the day I’m steeping a session of White Mist, a Canadian grown white tea that I had the pleasure of seeing grow in person last summer during my vacation to BC. The dry leaf is pretty aromatic, with a mix of cocoa and crisp cucumber coming through on the nose. Steeped up, this is one of the most chocolate-y tasting white teas I’ve come across, with supporting notes of roasted nuts and quinoa and a cool, crisp finish of snow peas. There’s less cucumber than I was getting from the dry leaf but there’s still a bit of a green snap to the taste almost as if you were biting into cucumber peel without any pulp. Though my first impulse today was to pull out a bunch of maple teas, I think this was better! It does steep out quickly, but dang, if it isn’t both interesting and delicious!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C85DkYIOX8c/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6QgbhA8sNM

Continuing with the last chunk of vacation tasting notes.

One of the first tea centered activities we did after leaving Vancouver and heading to Victoria was going to tour Westholme, which is Canada’s first tea farm producing Camellia Sinensis. It’s been around for over a decade now, and I’ve actually been fortunate enough to try some of their tea before as well. However, I wanted to touch the leaves – and touch the leaves I did!

The tour itself didn’t take too long as the farm is fairly small, however the space is beautiful and it was really interesting talking to Victor (the tea producer) and Margit (the in house ceramicist) and learning how the farm had come to be and some of the trials and tribulations that had to be overcome in order to get the bushes producing. Canada is, after all, not the typical climate that Camellia Sinensis grows in.

In addition to plucking some of my own leaves from the bushes and seeing the previous day’s harvest in the process of withering, we also got to taste teas in our own yunomi cups that we were gifted as part of the experience. Victor started with White Mist, which is their white tea they produce, brewed it a very large French press style pot/carafe for our tour group to share. It had been produced just a few days prior to our visit.

The leaves were somewhat crude looking, without the polish you’d expect typically. However, the tea itself was just lovely. I definitely found our first infusion to be less traditional in its tasting notes – very nutty and toasty with a prominent note of milk chocolate that is pretty unlike other white teas I’ve ever had. Underneath those more forefront flavours was a bit of the vegetal, crisp notes I’d more likely expect from a white tea. The second infusion was still plenty flavourful, though significantly less chocolate tasting with more of an overt snap pea flavour to balance out the toasty rice-like flavours.

I did buy some of this tea to take home – crudeness aside, it’s just really interesting as a white tea and I’m excited to get to play around with it a little more with my own steeping parameters!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cs1MzSdx_Ka/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLRuporGK4Q

A coworker recently spent some months in BC and ended up visiting Westholme while she was out there – she brought back a couple of the teas for us to try, which was incredibly sweet and thoughtful of her. I’ve had Westholme’s Canadian grown tea before – but only in blends and never straight, so this was really interesting for me!

This white tea is very pretty looking with larger leaves and a beautiful spread of colours among the leaves. It tasted really good but also quite strange for a white tea – not the flavours I ever would have ever expected to taste from this leaf style. Very, very nutty with hints of darker honey and milk chocolate. I had to double take because I was sure that I was looking at the wrong leaf for what we’d brewed up.

If this tea weren’t so freaking expensive, I would totally buy more. It’s unique and tasty!