Summer is Here, and Hydration is Vital—Turn To Delicious Rooibos Tea!
Tomorrow is National Hydration Day—bet that’s news to you!
It’s not exactly national holiday material. But National Hydration Day does remind us about the importance of beverage sipping for human health, an activity that rises in importance as the days grow hotter.
Hydration is vital. Water comprises about 60% of our bodies. It transports nutrients, eliminates waste, lubricates and cushions joints. Water regulates body temperature, protects organs, reduces blood pressure, enhances liver and metabolic functions and bolsters cells’ ability to transform food into fuel. In short, water not only represents a substance essential for human life; it also helps make life enjoyable. Without proper hydration, our health degrades.
Among other things, poor hydration leads to mitigated blood volume, which affects blood pressure. Also, the body’s quotient of minerals like salt remains constant regardless of water volume. When the amount of water in the body dips, these minerals get concentrated. The effect is a bodily imbalance, a lack of homeostasis.
While hydration matters year-round, it becomes especially urgent during the hot months, as perspiration removes water from our bodies. Unless we are exercising vigorously when our environment is cool, we lose much less water due to perspiration during seasons without high temperatures.
All of this supports the importance of drinking across the day. It’s a must.
Beverages are crucial all summer. But which ones are best?
But of course we all confront options for the things we’ll sip to maintain happy hydration. Water is an excellent idea. Alcohol is not, as it is a powerful diuretic, causing increased needs to urinate and, thus, water loss. Sweet beverages like soda and fruit juice can help with the hydration bit, but they also detract from health in myriad ways. Ditto for dairy milk.
And then there’s tea, which is water infused with botanicals. The caffeine in traditional Camellia sinensis is a mild diuretic. But the effect is so minimal that it doesn’t contribute toward dehydration, according to research.
Tea, however, includes much more than our beloved oolongs and greens. It also encompasses a huge number of herbal preparations, most of which do not contain any caffeine. And one of these herbal teas, South African rooibos, is especially powerful for hydration.
The Rooibos Advantage
The ready-to-drink beverage market contains loads of drinks designed for upped hydration. Gatorade represents the OG hydration beverage, and many more now line market shelves. One ingredient nearly all of them share? Electrolytes. And electrolytes are something found in relative abundance in rooibos tea.
Electrolytes are minerals essential for regulating the body’s balance of fluids, playing key roles in maintaining optimum blood pressure, muscle contraction and overall system performance. The main electrolytes found in the world, as well as in rooibos, are sodium, potassium and magnesium. When we lose water thanks to perspiration, these essential electrolytes also drift away from the body. This negatively influences the body’s functioning, as it requires a certain balance of electrolytes and water to maintain homeostasis.
Enter rooibos, an electrolyte-dense beverage without added sweeteners, preservatives, artificial flavors and the rest of the nasties often found in sports drinks. It’s awfully simple: water infused with rooibos. Many rooibos teas are blends, incorporating other botanicals like herbs, roots, spices, flowers and fruit. All of these are health-forward.
Summer is officially just a day old—the solstice, yesterday, kicked off the warm season. It’s time to hit the trails and the bike and pedestrian paths; the playing fields and the basketball courts. We recommend brewing one of the following rooibos teas in large amounts, and storing the brewed tea in a pitcher in the refrigerator. Before heading out, fill a water bottle with cold rooibos. Your body will thank you!
Hydration Tea: Boulder Boost (Organic)
Our home state and city, Boulder, Colorado, inspired our creation of this fantastic blend. Boulderites spend all summer running along mountain trails, and cycling up steep roads. Many professional athletes live in the city. The people of Boulder kayak, paddleboard, wade streams fishing for trout, swim lap after lap in pools (the city is ground zero for triathletes), and spend an unusual amount of time moving their bodies in the outdoors.
If any city needs a hydration solution, it’s Boulder! Summers can be quite hot too, and the air is normally awfully dry. Our Boulder Boost delivers both energy and hydration through rooibos. Outstanding flavor, too.
On the energy front, it includes guayusa, a South American shrub similar to yerba mate that contains caffeine. As referenced earlier, caffeine can be a mild diuretic, but research has concluded that that effect is negligible. The tea also contains vanilla, tulsi, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, fennel and rose, all of which bring different wellness benefits to the party, from digestion assistance (ginger and fennel) to blood sugar regulation (cinnamon) to heart health (rose). And then there’s the hydration powerhouse green rooibos. We keep this spectacle of hydration and energy excellence in the refrigerator all summer.
Hydration Tea: Vanilla Rooibos
We find that the flavor of vanilla is especially welcome during the summer. There’s a reason vanilla ice cream is the most popular flavor! It somehow seems to cool things down while also suggesting sweetness, even though vanilla extract does not contain sugar.
Our Vanilla Rooibos combines basic rooibos (red in color, slightly roasted) with genuine Madagascar vanilla. Calendula leaves and almond slivers contribute to the taste sensation.
We often serve it as a dessert tea, grand on its own but excellent with a little bit of honey, too. Either way, in summer we brew it into big batches of unsweetened iced tea and glug it down while from water bottles while hiking or popping in and out of hot cars while running weekend errands.
Hydration Tea: Rooibos Earl Grey
If you have spent much time on our website, you know how we feel about Earl Grey tea: much in favor! We carry five kinds: Decaffeinated Early Grey, Earl Grey Green Tea, Earl Grey Superior, Lady Early Grey (with lavender and lemon) and Rooibos Earl Grey.
The key to all Earl Grey tea’s flavor is oil from the citrus fruit bergamot, which grows along the coast of Italy. Given our embrace of Earl Grey, it’s clearly a flavor that we adore.
Our Rooibos Earl Grey offers one of our favorite flavors, only without the caffeine and loaded with those all-important electrolytes from rooibos. It also incorporates corn flower. It’s a simple blend, and out of this world—another beverage treasure to park in the refrigerator and drink all summer long.
