For Beach Vacations, Bring Along the Tea!
When you live in Colorado and fly to a beach during summer for a little R&R, you can’t really bring the wine, the clams, the peach cobbler, the ice cream. Even if you could, why would you?
But the tea? Bring it! Tea is the most portable beverage in the world. No matter whether it’s oolong, yerba mate, chai or an herbal bland it’s little more than dried botanicals. A week’s worth of tea for an entire family would weigh less than an iPhone, and its quality would remain the same.
What tea should you slip into your luggage?
If you have favorites, don’t forget them. Chances are, you won’t find your prized sencha, Darjeeling or pu-erh in the corner market, tucked in with the suntan lotion, bug spray and candy bars.
But given the environment—flip-flops and sand, sun and salt water, heat and humidity—we think teas beyond your usual suspects are in order. And one of the beautiful things about tea is how its wild diversity in flavors can complement just about any experience. If it’s rainy and gloomy and you want something robust and dark to wake you up, the world of black teas serve as excellent mood stimulants. Grassy and floral green and white teas, on the other hand, seem more aligned with sultry summer days.
It’s when we dip into herbal teas, though, that we can better align tea flavors with individual experiences. Herbals contain everything from cinnamon and clove, to rosemary, lemongrass, hibiscus, lavender and dried peach. Potential combinations are nearly limitless, along with the resulting flavors.
No matter the beach experience, we’ve got a tea for you! Read on for a curated selection of teas that we think will help enhance any beach vacation.
Beach Tea: Aloha Blend
Beach vacations from our home state of Colorado often lead toward California and Mexico. But another state draws a lot of Coloradans, too, although the flight is quite a bit longer: Hawaii.
The final destination could be the island of Oahu, home to state’s only big city, Honolulu, and its famous North Shore surf breaks (Sunset Beach, Waimea Bay, Banzai Pipeline). Many stop in Oahu first, before heading off to the islands of Maui, Kauai or the Big Island (called Hawaii). No matter the island, if it’s Hawaii beaches will figure largely in the experience.
And this black tea, with its cacao nibs, coconut and chocolate chips captures the spirit of aloha with aplomb. We love brewing from the rental unit in the morning and bringing it with us, chilled, for all day sipping on the beach, while we watch the surfers and in between our own attempts at paddle boarding.
Beach Tea: Piña Colada Blend (Mango Green, Grilled Pineapple Black, Aloha Blend)
Our wonderful employee Andrew came up with this superb DIY blend, which involves our outstanding Aloha Blend (discussed above) with our Mango Green and Grilled Pineapple Black tea. The recipe also includes an optional twist, for adults.
Any visitor to Mexico, Hawaii and other tropical locales (Southern California, too) quickly realizes the centrality of tropical fruit to their many cultures. Pineapples have emerged as a star, symbolizing peace and hospitality across Hawaii’s 137 islands (most of which are uninhabited) as well as other warm destinations. Mangos, another fruit that grows strong in Hawaii, also dangle from trees throughout many beachy spots. Coconuts, too.
All of the above finds purchase in the Piña Colada blend. We recommend picking up each of the teas, putting them together in equal parts, and brewing it all into an elixir that nearly screams “beach.” Interested in upping the seaside quotient even more? Add some coconut milk to the blend, and if you like sweetness, some sugar, honey, agave nectar or simple syrup. And for adults, an ounce of rum turns this blend into one dreamy extravagance.
Beach Tea: Firefly Chai
Not every beach vacation involves the hot tropics. In fact, many people prefer cooler beach spots, like the Oregon and Washington coasts, Maine and Nova Scotia. And for these kinds of trips, we prefer teas the warm us up as we take miles long walks on the big beaches, mixed in with tidal pooling and maybe even a driftwood fire on the beach.
When temperatures are more like 65 than 90 on the beach, we make a pot of Firefly Chai, which we keep in a thermos while we explore the beach and savor the sound of crashing surf. This fantastic chai, one of more than a dozen that we carry, includes black tea, ginger root, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, vanilla and nutmeg.
We also bring along our Be Happy and Blueberry Lavender Bliss teas for cooler beach vacations.
As Be Happy rests on a foundation of rooibos, it provides superlative hydration for those long beach walks. The South African shrug rooibos is packed with electrolyte, minerals that among many other things aid with hydration.
Vacations in places like Oregon, Washington, Northern California Maine and Nova Scotia also tend to involve an abundance of berries, which is one of the things we love about these grips. We love enjoying our Blueberry Lavender Bliss while we are turning cartons of blueberries, boysenberries, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries into crisps, cobblers, sauces for ice cream and much more.
