New Tea Blend to Support Marshall Fire Evacuees

New Tea Blend to Support Marshall Fire Evacuees

The fire began on Thursday morning near Marshall Mesa. Hurricane-force winds, with gusts reaching 110 mph, rapidly vaulted the blaze east. It tore through fields and trees, swept over roads, and soon roared through Superior and then Louisville.

The Marshall Fire destroyed about 1,000 buildings, most of them people’s homes. It forced 35,000 people to evacuate their homes; many of them today no longer have bedrooms packed with stuffed animals, garages full of tools, family rooms decorated with photos and vacation mementos and warm kitchens for morning tea and family dinners.

The tragedy devastated lives in these two lovely towns. Businesses and people across Boulder County now are offering free meals to evacuees. They are donating clothing, toys, prepaid gift cards. The people of our strong community responded with admirable heart and spirit. It all makes us proud to call this home.

The following links offer a wealth of helpful information for those directly affected by the Marshall Fire, including restaurants offering free meals, as well as people who want to help evacuees.

Northwest Chamber

Downtown Boulder

Today’s blog explores the many tea blends that we craft at Ku Cha. But the emphasis is on our new Organic Zen Time blend, a custom combination of flowers and herbs that promotes calm and peace. All proceeds from the sale of Zen Time go straight to the Marshall Fire Relief Fund.

We look forward to sharing this beautiful tea with you, and donating the proceeds to the thousands of people across our county that today don’t have much to be happy about in this New Year.

Let’s dive into the diverse world of blended tea at Ku Cha.


Blending Tea at Ku Cha

Our blends include every kind of tea we sell: black teas and greens, white teas and pu-erh, oolongs and herbals. While single-origin whole-leaf teas serve as the backbone of our tea program, blends are a vital part of Ku Cha. They add so much variety to our selection, such a vast inventory of flavors and textures. We drink blends nearly every day, as well as single-origin Camellia sinensis brews.

Team Ku Cha comes up with many of the blends, after much experimenting with ingredients, everything from black tea, ginger, lavender and blueberry to peppers, oolong tea, rooibos, rosemary and much more.

Most of the time, the first experiment doesn’t quite work. Maybe it had too much cinnamon. Or perhaps the rose petals overpowered the blend. After serial tweaking and tasting, we finally arrive upon a blend we love. And then, just like that, it’s for sale at Ku Cha.

Today, we focus on herbal blends, teas that don’t contain any traditional Camellia sinensis, and instead revolve around other botanical ingredients. We adore herbal tea. Unless it contains yerba mate or guayusa (related South American shrubs), it’s caffeine-free. The flavors possibilities are wildly divergent — peppermint, clove, cocoa and freeze-dried strawberry, for example, taste nothing alike.

After a solid month of feasting, drinking and being extra busy, we think it’s time to sink into herbal teas. Organic Zen Time is the perfect place to start.


Herbal Blends: Organic Zen Time

Organic Zen Time tea helps ease anxiety and stress.

Our outstanding team member Wren Cedar came up with Zen Time, an herbal blend that leans into the advantages of passionflower.

“I wanted to craft a blend that could help relieve anxiety, as well as some of anxiety’s effects, like stomach and digestive issues,” says Wren. “Passionflower is fantastic for managing anxiety and stress. It also has a unique, grassy flavor. Some people love it, but not everybody. So I wanted to create something that would make passionflower more accessible, because it’s such a powerful herb.”

Flowers from the passionflower vine are used extensively by herbalists to nurture relaxation, mood improvement and sleep. Some studies suggest that passionflower works its magic by boosting the amino acid gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the brain. 

We appreciate passionflower on its own, but this blend ups the flavor winningly with additions of rose, rosehip, chamomile and peppermint, all of which get tapped by herbalists to aid digestion, as well as to help spark relaxation.

You’ll love it. And remember, Ku Cha is donating all proceeds from Organic Zen Time to the Marshall Fire Relief Fund. 


Herbal Blends: Organic Cloud Chaser

Sip – and inhale – Cloud Chaser.

Like most herbal blends, Organic Cloud Chaser is about more than flavor: aroma is an important part of the experience. Lemon balm. Lavender. Marjoram. Peppermint. Rose petals. This tea if packed with aromatic superstars. 

It also contains St. John’s Wort, a flower that herbalists in countries around the world, including across Europe, advise for people suffering from mild depression. In Germany, St. John’s Wort is the most commonly prescribed anti-depressant.

Start your morning with a cup of this, even before you turn to something caffeinated. The perfume, bewitching flavor and medicinal botanicals will help conjure an agreeable state of mind. Sip it shortly before going to bed; it will help you drift off to la-la land.


Herbal Blends: Balance Tea

Achieve equilibrium with Balance tea.

Ku Cha turned to principles of Ayurvedic medicine to craft this custom blend. The goal? To spark harmony within body and mind.

Our Balance Tea combines ingredients you often find in chai, like cinnamon, cardamom, licorice root, fennel, coriander and ginger, with floral rose. The blend is a slam dunk, a brew that refers to chai but lacking the black tea and with the addition of rose becomes something different — a more balanced, and caffeine-free, beverage.

Herbal teas introduce such diversity into our beverage choices. Not beer, not wine, not coffee, not juice — no other category of beverage offers literally thousands of flavor profiles, all of which can easily be blended together into entirely new tastes.

Enjoy.

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