How tea can help you slow down and feel grateful this season
Welcome to November, friends. This month and December occupy a LOT of space in the collective experience of many people around the world—including in the United States.
Thanksgiving is unique to the U.S., but other cultures revel in the month, often in ways tied to harvests in the Northern Hemisphere. December, of course, hosts the holidays, the winter solstice and other factors that transform the stretch of 31 days into a frenzy of conviviality and activity. And with the year’s final month, the pace of activity is nearly worldwide.
This month’s penultimate U.S. holiday, Thanksgiving, revolves around gratitude. How lovely that one of the country’s most faithfully observed and powerfully championed celebrations rises from something so profoundly soulful. A rare event, indeed.
We love, too, how as soon as it’s over the festive sprint to the holidays begins! We’ll be featuring holiday tea gifts for the rest of the year—including in this newsletter.
But here, let’s stick with this heart-expanding gratitude theme.
We’ve got about three weeks until families and friends begin getting together for their annual gathering of gratitude. Instead of racing through the days without registering “thank yous” until the holiday itself, we can incorporate gratefulness into the rest of the month. And we can invite tea to help us ripen these feelings of appreciation.
It might take ritual to remind us to give thanks. In countries across Asia, tea already serves as a conduit for ritual and ceremony. Maybe this year it’s time to start cultivating tea rituals that will help shepherd gratitude into our lives.
Gratitude begins with a sip
Pick a time every day to brew a pot or cup of tea. Think of this little break in the day as your “gratitude window.” Once the tea is ready, take it somewhere quiet—even if that means going on a short walk, mug in hand. Consider the many things for which you are thankful as the cup warms your palms, as the green tea’s grassy aromatics or the herbal’s bounty of rose perfume lights up your spirit.
Promise—you’ll feel better when it’s over, even if the break was just five minutes.
While any just-brewed tea—literally—can work smashingly well with this strategy, we offer a trio below to get the gratitude going.
Gratitude Teas: Jasmine Pearl Green
All brewed tea sends forth aromatics—often earthy, grassy, floral. But jasmine teas perfume their close environments like few others. And we think aroma can serve as a powerful driver for ritual—and gratitude. This, our most popular jasmine tea, contains fragrant pearls crafted from green tea leaves and jasmine blossoms. When hot water hits the little miracle balls, they unfurl—you can observe the action—and broadcast intoxicating perfumes.
Tea artisans in China craft these tea delicacies from spring-harvested green tea and fresh jasmine blossoms. They roll them together, cure them and then—they’re ready for tea merchants like us.
You’ll experience immense gratitude with every sip of these beauties!
Gratitude Teas: Be Happy Rooibos
Giving thanks always fosters happiness. Things in our life may foster anger, but when we express gratitude the anger, if only briefly, drifts away. Gratitude is powerful.
Why not give the good vibes an edge when you brew a pot or cuppa’ and try to dwell on some of the things for which you are grateful?
Our Be Happy Rooibos stands on firm ground—peach rooibos. Rooibos’s earthy notes pair beautifully with the deep peach notes. It also contains bright lemon peel. And then the spine of the happy bit (other than the wonderful flavor): St. John’s Wort. People in Europe have been taking the botanical for generations to lift their moods.
But there’s no need for a pill, capsule or gummy here for your St. John’s Wort. It’s in the tea—the very blend that will help deliver you to a place of profound gratitude.
Gratitude Teas: Desert Rose Herbal Blend
We’re back to the power of perfume again with this blend. Rose. Rosemary. Sage. Lavender. Lemon balm. We crafted it to reflect our region’s desert reaches—the Western Slope of Colorado, New Mexico, sage, wild rose. We also felt it needed a whisper of the Mediterranean, so we laced the blend with lavender, rosemary and lemon balm.
This caffeine-free treasure helps ground us in the moment—a key component of any gratitude practice. Thanks to the botanicals, it also boosts memory, reduces anxiety, lowers blood glucose and plenty more.
