We had such a wonderful night’s sleep in a fabulous bed. The shower was heavenly, and Shirley made a delicious breakfast for all of us. She reminded the girls and I of my mom because everything she does was similar to Nana. Shirley made a wonderful egg dish with bread, sausage, and cheese, with fruit, and fresh blueberry muffins, just like my mom would make. We felt totally spoiled and like we got a little taste of home. We were enjoying visiting with Shirley and Al this morning that the time got away from us. The kids were having a ball down stairs, which is their remodeled basement, with all the dress up wigs and outfits that they have for their grandkids.
We didn’t leave their house until about 1:00, but it was well worth spending time with them. What a sweet, Godly couple with a beautiful family . . . another enormous blessing to us along our journeys of amazingly gracious and hospitable families!!
We drove to Boulder, Colorado to visit the Celestial Seasonings tea factory. On the way we saw prairie dogs standing outside their homes right on the side of the highway . . . they were so adorable & not bothered by the cars at all.
Celestial Seasonings give free tours and tastings of their famous teas known all around the world. When we signed up for the tour they gave us “teakits”, which were packets of peach tea, for our entry into the tour . . . adorable! We watched a movie first about the tea making process and how their company started. Then we were given these lovely shower caps to wear over our hair through the factory. They were hideous, but thankfully everyone looked ridiculous so it wasn’t embarrassing.
The tour was fascinating and as we walked through the factory we could smell all the different flavors. First we went through the milling area and learned that there are 3 steps to the milling process. The first step is to dry clean the plant because of course cleaning it with water would ruin the plant, so it’s a drying process. After cleaning, the plant goes through a machine that cuts it and then sends it into an enormous sifter to take out all the unwanted parts of the plant.
The next step in the process is the mixing of all the different kinds of herbs to create the wonderful flavored teas that we buy today. Herbs come from all over the world: Argentina, India, Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, Sri Lanka, China, and Indonesia. Celestial Seasoning is responsible to creating the herbal tea which is actually not a tea at all. The name for herbal teas should actually be “herbal infusions” because green tea, black tea, and white tea are really the only true teas. These “teas” are stored separate from all the other herbs in the “tea room”. Green tea is steamed and loses some of it’s caffeine in the process, and black tea is rolled and keeps all of its caffeine. White tea is extremely hard to get because it is only grown for 2 weeks out of the year, so it’s more of a rare tea than black or green. All of these teas are mixed with all kinds of herbs to give them many different varieties of flavors.
Our tour guide next took us in a very special room and her prefaced it with, “this is the only thing that you will remember from the tour.” Then he opened the door for us to walk into the super strong, eye watering, nose clearing, and peppermint room. It was so strong we would hardly stand to stay in there. It certainly was great for our sinuses though!! Peppermint tea is the third most popular tea sold, with Sleepytime, and chamomile being one and two respectfully. Peppermint and spearmint have mint oil with menthol so it is not milled the traditional way so the oils do not get ruined in the process. It also has to be stored separately so that it doesn’t infuse it’s flavor in all the other flavors because it’s so strong.
Last we walked through the packaging area where they can make 10 millions bags, and 500,00 boxes a day. WOW!! They are famous for the special “pillow” like tea bags instead of the strings. They invented this type because they found it much more economical than the strings, saving the company millions of dollars a year. Surprisingly Canada is the leading buyer of Celestial Teas. It was an awesome tour and I’m so glad that we found this little place amongst the mountains of beautiful Colorado. When we were done with the tour, we went to the tasting room where we could try any tea that we wanted. My favorite was a new one called Peach Blossom!! Yum. . . I love tea!!
After we finished in the tea shop we drove to Barb’s house. She is a Californian family that just moved to Colorado about a year ago. She had 3 adorable girls who she used to homeschool and this year they went to school for the first time and loved it. Colorado schools are incredibly different than California schools. Her husband is still back in California trying to tie up the loose ends and find a job out here. We have been praying for him to find the perfect job here in Colorado, so I know it’s just a matter of time, but we will keep praying. It was so great to see Barb and the girls and she graciously is letting us stay with her for 2 nights.
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