Improve Camping Getaways With These Teas
As Ku Cha House of Tea calls Colorado home, we get to spend time in beautiful places every day — not just while on vacation. For many of us here in the Centennial State, camping serves as a summer-long pursuit. Some of us backpack deep into the wilderness and spend nights far removed from civilization. Others pack up vehicles with tents, sleeping bags, marshmallows and graham crackers and spend a few days hanging out around campfires and inhaling s’mores. And then there’s the RV and camper crew — their set-ups include beds, kitchens, bathrooms and plenty more.
One thing we all share: a love of the outdoors.
Whenever we head to the mountains for camping trips, we bring along tea. And as we generally pursue car camping rather than backpacking, we add tea pots with built-in strainers to the packing list — either that, or simple tea balls or tea tongs. Either way, we always triple-check the tea supplies before we drive off. Even in July and August, cool air captures mountain mornings and evenings. We think warm mugs of steaming tea improve the hours we spend making pancakes in the morning and playing cards on the picnic table after dinner.
What teas to bring? Your favorites! But we suggest considering a trio of teas that perform different functions: provide energy, boost relaxation and aid hydration. Importantly, all of these teas taste superb.
Enjoy those hours and days at the campsite! Treasure them — we are lucky to enjoy such a wealth of stirring camping opportunities in Colorado.
Camping Teas: FoCo Cocoa
Looking for s’mores in a cup? Our FoCo Cocoa comes close, minus the sweet bit. But FoCo Cocoa offers much more than the enchanting and atmospheric camping flavors of chocolate, vanilla and cinnaman. It also gets sippers into gear!
We often don’t sleep wonderfully while camping. The quarters are close. In the mountains, elevation can disrupt sleep. Noises and responses — Is that a bear rummaging round the campsite?! — awaken us; sometimes, we don’t quite fall back asleep.
Caffeine comes in handy during camping trips, and our FoCo Cocoa contains plenty of it, from two sources. First off, black tea anchors FoCo Cocoa. But then we double-down on this custom blend by adding yerba mate, a mix of leaves and other green parts from the South American yerba mate tree. As with both Camellia sinensis and coffee, caffeine finds a home in the yerba mate plant
With chocolate, cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon and black pepper, this custom blend beguiles us with spectacular deliciousness, with flavors and aromas that elevate the camping experience, especially during those pancake-scarfing mornings and post-hike afternoons.
Camping Teas: Organic CHA Relax
While FoCo supercharges mornings, our house-blended CHA Relax dials-in tranquility and fosters meditative, rather than go-go-go states. We crafted this blend in collaboration with the University of Colorado’s Center for Humanities and the Arts, a fountain of scholarly energy that aims to foster connections among professors and students engaged with humanities and arts work. It also seeks to broadcast the university’s humanities and arts research and accomplishments across campus and Colorado’s Front Range.
Ironically, the organization’s acronym, CHA, means tea in Chinese. In fact, it’s part of our name: Ku Cha means “bitter tea.”
We know scholars often require energy boosts to get them through tough days of research and creative work. But they also need tools to help foster calm and intellectual focus.
CHA Relax contains electrolyte-rich rooibos, discussed above, as well as ginkgo, an ancient tree native to China, and elder flower to stoke blood circulation and even fight allergies. It also incorporates chamomile, which serves as a mild sedative, and spearmint, a subtle sweetener and digestive aid. Thirst-quenching, soothing and gently sweet, this represents a perfect tea for sipping while sitting in a camp chair and reading a book, or sitting around a campfire and cooking hot dogs on sticks.
Camping Teas: Vanilla Rooibos
The long day is coming to a close. The hot dogs skewered on pointed sticks for roasting now reside in stomachs, and the sticks pierce marshmallows instead.
Time for after-dinner tea! This stands as a Ku Cha favorite on the after-dinner tea front. The blend of rooibos, almond slivers and vanilla offer rich flavor, and the addition of calendula gives Vanilla Rooibos plenty of health benefits. Herbal practitioners around the world turn to calendula to assist with a variety of health issues, from wounds that need healing to easing muscle fatigue, protecting against heart disease and flooding the body with healthy antioxidants and other anti-inflammatory properties.
Sip these teas with abandon across your days in the mountains, beside a lake or river, or on the prairie. We hope to see you at one of the campsites!
