Spark Those Autumn Vibes into High Gear With These Fall Energy Teas!
Here in Colorado, at least, if feels like it has arrived. Cool mornings. Leaves’ green starting to fade as hints of yellow, orange and red emerge. Pumpkin spice products on display just about everywhere. Autumn! We welcome you with open arms!
When the chill returns, after months of heat, we head to the mountains to catch Colorado’s glorious aspen groves in all of their yellow-gold glory. Backyard bonfires? Assuming wildfire threats have passed, we savor them with mugs of hot tea and maybe even the fixings for s’mores. We make soups and stews again, break out the sweaters and make sure to pick up Colorado apples from the farmers market for pies, tarts and general noshing.
Tea, of course, figures largely into all of our autumnal pursuits. When served hot—which is how we normally sip our favorite beverage—the temperature helps stoke warmth. Tea’s many different flavors complement the season’s classic dishes. And the healthy measures of caffeine in tea leaves help keep us going, as we pivot from morning pancakes to mountain leaf-peeping to casserole-making, firewood-stacking and home decorating with things like winter squash and corn stalks.
Both winter and summer seem to drag on for a bit too long. Spring is awfully volatile, with snow one day followed by blooming daffodils the next. But when the heart of autumn arrives, it’s about as good as it gets. It arrives just once a year, and autumn never lasts long enough.
Don’t miss it! We offer a selection of teas that offer moderate boosts of caffeine to lend a hand as you embrace those autumn vibes. All of them contain traditional tea—Camellia sinensis—and two of them are blends, incorporating other botanicals into the mix. Each of these teas will help send your autumn vibes into overdrive!
Autumn Vibe Teas: Pumpkin Spice Chai
We’re year-round chai sippers. And we don’t confine the consumption of pumpkin spice to just a month or so during autumn. It’s always delicious. But we do appreciate how the sweet-and-spicy flavors and aromas that erupt every autumn help align us with fall’s grandeur. Pumpkin spice is more than taste—it’s mood, too. And boy do we offer outstanding invitations to intense autumn moods with our custom Pumpkin Spice Chai. This beauty begins with black tea—a chai standard—as well as rooibos, the South African shrub. Rooibos adds earthiness to the blend, as well as health through its heavy balance of electrolytes. To this firm foundation we lace the blend with cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, real pieces of dried pumpkin and ginger. Make sure to try this perfect chai—autumn vibes on steroids! Add a little honey and creamer? Never a bad idea with chai.
Autumn Vibe Teas: Shou Mei White Tea
While pumpkin spice has become shorthand for autumn, that doesn’t mean it’s the only flavor to exploit during the grand season. Wine professionals understand this. In autumn they turn to wines like Pinot Noir, with its tobacco, dirt and mushroom notes, and Chardonnay (especially Chardonnay from France’s Burgundy region) for its honeyed, nutty, apple and Meyer lemon notes. For tea crazies like us, fall sparks desire for a variety of teas, including puerhs and teas like Shou Mei, which is a white tea compressed into a cake form. Both puerh and Shou Mei, which means “Old Man’s Eybrow” in Chinese, send forth forest floor aromatic notes when brewed—a winning and complex effect that reminds us of a walk in the woods when multi-covered leaves blanket the ground. Shou Mei is also famous for its medicinal benefits, such as improving immunity, enhancing skin complexion and bring about detoxification. In addition, shou mei serves as an ideal candidate for aging. As the cake gains months and even years, it become sweeter and the medicinal benefits grow more concentrated.
Autumn Vibe Teas: Monkey Bread Puerh Blend
Few classic American desserts nail autumn vibes quite like monkey bread. A fair and festival staple, as well as a bakery favorite, monkey bread often gets served as breakfast. The pull-apart treat features pillowy bread shot through with cinnamon and sugar. Make it at home, and the house will smell heavenly. Our Monkey Bread Puerh finds its inspiration in the American staple, but adds twists. For one thing, it contains three iterations of Camellia sinensis! Sweet Rice Puerh, Milk Oolong and black tea. Each of them adds unique qualities to the tea. The Sweet Rice Puerh contributes puerh’s wonderful earthy notes—the forest floor we discussed above in the Shou Mei description. The Milk Oolong adds oolong’s natural sweetness and toastiness, along with a silky richness from a patina of non-dairy creamer. And the black brings maltiness and robust depth to the party. To this we add cinnamon and allspice. The combination conjures monkey bread with every sip—and without a fraction of the calories, even if you spike it with creamer and honey.
Autumn Vibe Teas: Gao Shan Yin Xiang Raw Puerh
Farming and autumn go hand in hand. In the Northern Hemisphere, the first frost of the season takes place in autumn. This event ends the growing season for most vegetables and fruits. And after it takes place, cultures across the northern parts of the world hold harvest celebrations. In our country, for example, Thanksgiving honors the harvest. Given the season’s close association with agriculture, we think of our Gao Shan Yin Xiang Raw Puerh. Meaning “high mountain impression,” this tea comes from a single farmer’s tea garden in Yunnan Province’s Stone Village, which is situated on Nan Nuo—one of Yunnan’s famous six mountains. Tea artisans there harvest this Gao Shan from ancient arbor trees that are more than 100 years old. They then stone press the tea leaves into cakes in the traditional manner. The laoshu (old tree) origins of this tea are evident in its well-balanced structure, starting with an intensely floral nose, rich buttery palate and finishing with a firm but pleasing kuwei (good bitterness).
