#20 - Celestial Seasonings Tour

Well, I am halfway done with my new adventures, and I'm right on track to finish 40 in a year. August 6 marks 6 months since my birthday.

After all my stressing (see #19), I WAS able to fit one of my little road trip adventures into July afterall.  If you know much of anything about me, you know I can't stand coffee, but I am a big tea drinker.  You may not know that Boulder, Colorado, is home to Celestial Seasonsings. Their one and only manufacturing facility is there, and they offer free tours.  We intended to go on a tour three years ago when the whole family was in Boulder to run the Bolder Boulder 10k race, but because it was Memorial Day, the plant was closed.

The girls had their own social activities going on, so yesterday the boys and I headed up to Boulder on a beautiful day to see what Celestial Seasonsing was all about.  We learned that Mo I-Forget-His-Last-Name-And-I'm-Too-Lazy-To-Google-It first started harvesting herbs in Boulder in 1968. In 1969 he started bagging them in simple muslin bags and selling them as Celestial Seasonsings tea. In 1970, the very year I was born, Celestial Seasonings opened its first manufacturing plant in Boulder. They have grown steadily ever since.

After an interesting movie that discussed the history of Celestial Seasonings as well as its operations, we all donned hairnets (and beard nets, where appropriate) and headed into the manufacturing facility. 

It was very interesting to see the steps involved in packaging tea. The bulk of the building is warehouse-like, with sack upon sack upon sack of raw ingredients: hibiscus, clove, orange peel, etc.  The plant processes(cleans and cuts) one ingredient at a time.  Yesterday there were processing (as they had been for nearly 3 weeks) hibiscus.  They receive sacks full of the dried flowers(this recent batch is from Egypt, but they also receive them from China), they clean the contents with air (removing dust, sticks, rocks, etc), cut the ingredient and sift it according to size.  It was interesting to see a very fine layer of pink dust covering just about everything---that's tea dust, and in this case it was made of extremely fine particles of hibuscus. The dust is so abundant in the tea-making process that tours are restricted from certain areas of the plant because the tea dust makes the floor very slippery.

As we walked through the warehouse, the aroma varied, depending on which ingredient was stored nearby.  Then we came to "The Mint Room."  Three types of mint are stored here: peppermint, spearmint and catnip.  The mint smell is so strong that it must be stored in its own room or else the smell would permeate all the other ingredients.  When the guide opened the door (think HUGE garage door, not the kind of door in your house) and invited us to step into the mint room (roughly 30 x 30 feet with extremely high ceilings), the smell was beyond overpowering. Within a few seconds everyone's eys were watering and our sinuses were completely cleared out.  I understand why they sell shirts and mugs in the gift shop saying "I Survived the Mint Room."  It was also interesting to learn that all the mint comes from Washington state, and it is the only ingredient not processed in Boulder. Because mint is so high in oil content, and becasue the smell is so strong, they cannot process mint on the same machines as other ingredients, because it is impossible to clean the machines thoroughly enough to prevent the smell from "contaminating" other ingredients.

We also learned that "tea" is technically only "tea" if it contains the leaves of the plant called camellia sinensis.   "Teas" without this ingredient are technically "herbal infusions." Celestial Seasonings did try to label their "tea" boxes properly in the past, but they said it caused so much confusion that now they simply label "herbal infusions" as "herbal tea."

Here are a few more interesting tidbits that we learned:

• White tea is made from the top 2 or 3 leaves of the camellia sinensis plant. These leaves have a slight white fuzz on them and can only be harvested a few weeks out of the year.
• Hibiscus is the most common ingredient used by Celestial Seasonings. It is contained in all their Zinger teas.
• Celestial Seasonings imports tea ingredients from 36 countries.
• At the high season of tea production, with all 5 productions lines working 24 hours a day, Celestial Seasonings can produce 500,000 boxes of tea each day!
• The U.S. is the number one consumer of Celestial Seasonings tea--no surpirse. The tea is exported to a number of countries, but the number two consumer would likely surprise you (as it did us): Canada!
• Decaffienated and Caffiene-free mean two different things. "Decaffienated" means the ingredients have been "washed" in liquid carbon dioxide, which removes 95% of the caffiene.  However, since about 5% remains, the product cannot be labeled "caffiene-free."  Caffiene-free teas are made of only ingredients which contain no caffiene.
• The decaffientation process is done in Germany, as the Germans are the experts in that process (who knew?).
• Sleepytime tea is Celestial Seasonings #1 selling tea. #2 is chamomile. Both are herbal "teas." That means that meas that neither of the top two selling "teas" of Celestial Seasonings are actually "teas."  Ironic, huh?

The tour waiting room offered guests the chance to sample a variety of teas. We had the chance to not only sample, but also to purchase (in the post-tour store) some new "sweetened" (with Stevia) teas that will be hitting the grocery stores soon. I purchased Acai Mango, but they had three other fruit flavors. These are great as iced tea.  The plant also houses a cafeteria that is open to guests as well as employees. The food was great, far better than typical cafeteria food.

Overall it was a very nice tour. I would recommend if for any of you readers who live in Colorado.  It is worth the trip.