June’s Celestial Pivot Invites Fresh Pursuits
People in the United States celebrate July 4 and Thanksgiving. China has the Dragon Boat and Qingming festivals. Kenyans honor Jamhuri Day, Argentinians embrace Festival Nacional de la Vendimia and Tahitians have fun during the two-week-long Heiva i Tahiti.
Holidays around the world find their roots in national stories and religion, neither of which is universal to all of the world’s people.
But the solstices? People across the globe have been exalting the shortest and longest days of the year for millennia, regardless of religion, ethnicity or national myth. In some ancient Greek calendars, the new year kicked off with the summer solstice. Festivities in early China honored the solstice with festivities surrounding Earth, femininity and the female “yin” force, which the Chinese associated with the solstice. The solstice, called Midsummer by many northern Europeans, was a big deal among Vikings; they met to hammer out legal disputes during the solstice. The Sioux tribe in North America paid homage to the solstice ceremonial dances around a tree, wearing symbolic colors.
Solstices stand as seasonal reminders
We appreciate the different celebrations that to this day rise up to revere Earth’s journeys around the sun. The summer solstice arrives this year on Tuesday, June 21, which will be the longest day of the year. On the 22nd, the days start getting shorter. By December 21, the winter solstice, daylight brightens our world in Colorado for hours shorter than during the summer solstice.
The seasonal markers can stand as reminders. Between today and the next solstice six months later, we might consider the things we want to invite into our lives to carry us through the hot, bright summer, across atmospheric fall, and into the beginning of dark, frigid winter.
Sleep, focus and creativity required
As the long days persist across the warm months, we’ll want to optimize our sleep. All of that activity is simultaneously stimulating and exhausting, and sleep can suffer. Soon it’s back to school, and for many workers the end of summer’s ease; work returns in force in September. For this, we need focus. And the six-month arc from June to December includes more time spent indoors, perhaps working on creative projects; we think fall and early winter stand as especially contemplative and creative times.
We’ve got just the thing to help you achieve all of your solstice-to-solstice goals: summer solstice tea!
Tea is welcome for much more than jolts of morning caffeine. It can nurture creativity, channel focus, solicit sleep and much more. To help you honor one of Earth’s most momentous dates, we offer a trio of teas that will help you navigate the darkening days ahead.
Summer Solstice Tea for Sleep: Night Time Blend
Hikes at 8 to catch glorious alpenglow. Dinner at 9 o’clock. Even at 10 in the evening, the western horizon can still hold a slim glint of sunlight; we admire it while sitting in the back yard, with friends holding small glasses of digestif.
The summer sun invites us to fill our days with more and more activities. And all of those pursuits, over time, interfere with our sleep schedules. We might wish to wake up at 6 to get the day going, but when we don’t finally sink until slumber until midnight, that can goal can be tough to achieve.
Our Night Time Blend will ensure that the pause between activity and the drift into slumber is short. This delicious blend includes chamomile, catnip, peppermint and valerian root, all of which contribute toward sound sleep.
Chamomile and catnip are widely used around the world as sleep aids. Peppermint, the stuff of toothpaste, chewing gum and mojitos, also promotes sleep. But the most profound sleep-inducing botanical in this blend is probably valerian, a flowering grassland herb that can grow 6 feet tall. Records dating back to the ancient Greeks reveal that people have used the plant to treat insomnia.
Summer Solstice Tea for Focus: Meditation Blend
Just like that — snap! — we pivot from summer’s agreeable languor to the busy stuff of classrooms and offices, conferences and Zoom parades. We anticipate it every year, but still — the switcheroo often catches us off guard.
The sometimes dramatic shift demands a healthy dose of at least one quality: focus. Our ability to concentrate on complex projects grows flabby during summer. By the middle of August, when the world of work commences, we need help fixing our attention on intellectual tasks.
Our Meditation Blend tea is the perfect complement to the return of responsibility. The South American shrub yerba mate serves as its base; in addition to a pleasing herbal flavor, yerba also gives Boulder Boost a caffeine kick. People around the world turn to ginkgo, from the ancient ginkgo tree which is native to China, for brain health — including concentration and memory. Black pepper sparks alertness; Indian monks used it to help strengthen mental endurance for long meditation sessions. Cinnamon is warming and contemplative, while lavender, marshmallow root and rose are all calming botanicals.
The custom combination of botanical ingredients is tailored for the mental rigor of meditation — and for studying and work.
Summer Solstice Tea for Creative Energy: Boulder Boost
The need for focus turns pressing as soon as offices and classrooms call us back. But focus by itself is often not quite enough; we also desire creative energy to transform the things upon which we are focusing into triumphs.
We custom-crafted our Boulder Boost for Coloradans, with an emphasis on optimizing physical energy. With so many mountains, rivers and lakes calling us to run, bike, kayak, hike and climb, boosted physical energy is often required.
But soon after we created Boulder Boost, we noticed it improves creative energy. Instead of giving us the mental jitters and shakes, a common response to too much concentrated caffeine (we are looking at you, espresso), Boulder Boost beckoned our brains to think, to dream and to create.
The blend incorporates a range of botanicals, all of which contribute in different ways to the tea’s advantages. In addition to Madagascar vanilla black tea, it includes guayusa, a caffeine-spiked South American shrub, for physical energy. Green rooibos, from the South African plant that people in the country brew into tea every day, offers electrolytes, which aid hydration and stamina. Tulsi, an Indian herb, provides balancing effects. Ginger, cinnamon, allspice and fennel aid digestion while also enlivening the senses. And rose and vanilla perfume the tea with beautiful aromas and calming properties.
We think Boulder Boost is a triumph of flavor, and a wonderful complement for both physical and mental challenges.
