No State Offers as Many Mountain Pleasures as Colorado — Enrich Your Adventures With Tea!
No State Offers as Many Mountain Pleasures as Colorado — Enrich Your Adventures With Tea!
Colorado attracts tourists, and draws locals to its mountains, for three months out of the year. For people around the world who seek snow-capped peaks, flower-blanketed meadows, trout-abundant streams and vast networks of high-altitude trails, Colorado offers it all.
Spring is the state’s slow season: snow still covers the mountains, which makes hiking difficult, and most of the ski resorts close in April. As a result, there’s not much to do in the state’s alpine areas during the season of tulips.
In autumn, people head to the hills for the crisp air, the spectacle of rutting elk and landscapes blanketed in aspen gold.
Winter is the season for which the Centennial State is most famous. With at least 32 ski areas, including world-famous spots like Vail Ski Resort, Aspen Snowmass and Steamboat Ski resort, the state serves as a magnet for snowsports-obsessed people around the world. During winter, Denver International Airport gets clogged with big bags containing snow boards, skis and the rest of the ski gear.
Summer in the Mountains Enchants
And then comes summer—right up there with winter for “high season.” Those flowery meadows spring to life, for just weeks. Trails thread through shade-rich forests, and compel people on both foot and bike to climb them, stop for lunch to take in a majestic view, and then work their way back to the base. Cyclists make those long, tough ascents up canyon roads, people with fly rods crowd rivers, climbers dangle from ropes along the sides of cliffs and people sleep in tents after nights around campfires.
This summer, bring along another companion for your mountain excursions: tea. Thermoses keep our favorite beverage hot for those chilly mornings, as well as areas above 10,000 feet in elevation that can easily dip into the 40s in the afternoon, when it’s in the 90s in the Front Range. And iced tea is the perfect all-natural beverage for quenching thirst, boosting energy and mitigating the inflammation that emerges during all of that climbing and descending.
Mountain Tea: Boulder Boost
Hiking must serve as Colorado’s No. 1 outdoor pursuit. It’s normally free, unless parking comes with a fee. And trails thread the state’s huge mountain landscape.
Boulder, the home of Ku Cha House of Tea’s original store, supports more than 150 miles of trails, from flat, straight, gravel paths circumnavigating lakes to steep, root-and-rock dense mountain trails with lots of switchbacks.
No matter the trail, Organic Boulder Boost is a favorite for our excursions. The custom tea, which we developed for Boulder’s many outdoor enthusiasts, contains both Madagascar vanilla black tea and guayusa for flavor and caffeine. To that we add green rooibos, which is packed with electrolytes, minerals that are essential for effective hydration. The tea also incorporates tulsi, an Indian herb that people around the world now use to mitigate stress. Finally, this beautiful tea contains cinnamon, ginger, allspice, fennel and rose.
It’s a flavor bomb, an energy enhancer, a hydration pro and a de-stresser. Perfect for any hike.
A favorite hike, which takes about 2.5 hours:
Start at South Mesa Trailhead, which is near the quaint town of Eldorado Springs. If it’s a weekend, get there early; parking fills up fast.
From the trailhead, follow the bridge across the pretty river and then follow Mesa Trail up just a short bit until you see Homestead Trail. Go left on Homestead Trail and begin climbing. You’ll pass lots of yucca, sumac and wildflowers, and encounter a lot of red-colored boulders. It’s gorgeous.
Homestead Trail dead ends back on Mesa Trail. Go left, and follow Mesa Trail up until you reach a fork; you’ll take the trail on the left side: Shadow Canyon South. This lovely, wide trail climbs past one abandoned shack on the left, and then you reach a more substantial, and abandoned, cabin on the right. Shortly after the cabin, and after you cross a stream (we recommend dunking heads under waterfalls or in little pools), you’ll reach an intersection.
Go right, on Shadow Canyon North trail. This beauty takes you through deep, cool forest, full of birds, mushrooms and wildlife. It dead ends back at Mesa Trail. Go right, and follow Mesa Trail all the way back to the parking lot.
And drink Boulder Boost all along!
Mountain Tea: FoCo Cocoa
Mountains provoke more than exercise; they also persuade people to erect tents and hammocks and to hang out. And as the sun gets lower in the sky, they start campfires (unless they have been banned, due to wildfire risks). We adore campfires—the smells and sounds of grilling sausages, the perfume from the wood smoke, the crackle. S’mores always figure into our camping trips, and so does FoCo Cocoa, an outstanding blend created by members of our Fort Collins team.
With chocolate, cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon and black pepper, it’s like a campfire party in a cup. It also contains black tea and yerba mate, for flavor and a touch of caffeine kick. We love taking this one along for camping trips, to make the whole experience that much more atmospheric … and delicious!
Mountain Tea: Peach Oolong
Sprawled on a picnic blanket in a mountain meadow? Navigating a trout stream in the early morning? Mountain biking along one of Colorado’s famous trails? Our Peach Oolong is a partner for you, no matter the mountain pursuit.
We like it so much that our youngest son, Yuan, made a video showing people how best to cold brew this tea treasure into a perfect iced tea. Check out the video, and then brew the tea. You won’t be sorry! With oolong, dried mango, dried peach, plum blossom, calendula and sunflower, this fruit-forward, floral tea enriches any mountain getaway.
