Infused With Sunshine: Celebrate the Solstice With Summer Teas
Are you ready for tomorrow? That’s when the summer solstice, the year’s longest patch of daylight, takes place. The sun will rise at 5:31 a.m. and set 15 hours and 9 minutes later, at 8:42 p.m. After tomorrow, every day will contain slightly less daylight until the winter solstice, on December 21, when the day will hold only 9 hours and 21 minutes of daylight.
Honoring the summer solstice stretches back for millennia, far before the emergence of religions, agriculture and many other hallmarks of human cultural development. After all, it didn’t take immense amounts of advancement to figure out when the longest day of the year arrived.
Humans during the Neolithic period famously celebrated the solstice. The people who built Stonehenge, for example, crafted it in such a way as to align specifically with the year’s longest day.
Food and drink have figured into solstice celebrations for a long time. And that includes tea—especially herbal teas. The event takes place when so many botanicals flourish in natural landscapes, and people around the world have enjoyed making teas from different flowers, herbs and other natural ingredients.
In China, the summer solstice figures into the Chinese calendar. People often sip teas made from ingredients like chrysanthemum, lotus leaves and honeysuckle, to balance internal heat.
Let’s all honor this special day, one we share with all people living in the northern hemisphere. One smart move—set the alarm and watch that sun rise in the eastern horizon! It’s always stirring—but especially do on the solstice. And let’s also acknowledge this grand day with the ultimate expression of botanical diversity—tea!
Summer Solstice Tea: Summer Solstice fruit tea
We so appreciate the summer solstice that we crafted our own bespoke blend to honor the celestial event. The delicious blend celebrates sunny colors, through fruits like mango, orange and pineapple. Strawberry and apple deliver additional flavor components to the tea. Bright, bold marigold further touches on summery colors and vibes, while strawberry leaf contributes health benefits.
This vibrant tea comes loaded with vitamin C and beta-carotene, a combination that boosts our immune system, promotes skin health and promotes vision clarity.
Summer Solstice Tea: Sunrise Chai (Organic)
As catching the sunrise on the solstice counts as a highly recommended activity, we can’t resist sipping our pungent, spice-packed Sunrise Chai as soon as we climb out of bed. This glorious blend covers a lot of botanical bases: black tea, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, clove, cardamom, fennel, black pepper and cayenne. That lineup delivers a quite a wallop of flavor—perfect for rousing a sleepy brain for a morning appointment with the rising sun. The combination also provides health benefits that help foster conditions like weight loss and skin health, while introducing anti-inflammatory qualities. It’s a beautiful, potent chai—one of our favorites.
Summer Solstice Tea: Blueberry Lavender Bliss
For us, certain fruits scream summer more than others. One classic summer treat? Fresh blueberries. We love them baked into crisps, cobblers and pies, sprinkled atop bowls of granola or cereal, churned into ice cream and incorporated into cornbread muffins. They’re simply grand. Lavender ranks as another summer delight—those ethereal, perfumed spikes of blossoms offer heady color and aromatics to gardens and, once cut, everything from kitchen counters to the insides of bureau drawers.
This black-tea-based blend revels in flavor, with additions of ginger, calendula, cornflower and cocoa nibs. What a spectacle of summer! This beauty is ideal for sinking into the solstice—and it’s just as wonderful sipped hot as iced. Bring it along in a thermos for that sunrise appointment!
