May Delivers Flowers, Warmth and Mother’s Day — Don’t Forget the Tranquility Tea!
Happy May! It’s an exceptional month in the Front Range of Colorado. April’s relentless on-and-off-again rain and cold tends to drift away. Flowers blanket the ground, and weigh down tree branches. Grass greens up, leaves emerge on trees, bird song enlivens neighborhood and trail walks and flip-flips might even get retrieved from closets.
Even the month’s full moon, which will appear tomorrow night, spotlights the month’s beauty: It’s called the flower moon.
May is named after the Greek goddess Maia, who had a fling with the god Zeus and bore him a son, Hermes, one of the major Greek gods. It’s one of only two months named after women; the other, June, is named after the goddess Juno, the patroness of marriage and the well-being of women.
The Maia connection brings us to another May advantage: It hosts Mother’s Day, one of our favorite holidays.
While we celebrate May for its many pleasures every year, it does pose challenges, too. For moms with kids still in school, getting through May can amount to a bit of a slog. Kids are beat up after more than eight months of classrooms and homework. Parents are beat down after a parade of weekends crammed with kids sports, after morning after morning after morning making breakfasts and packing lunches and evenings of either baths and stories or homework crackdowns and arguments about phone usage.
As the month winds down and kids eventually head to summer camps, summer jobs or just summer fun — with summer vacations waiting in the wings — take care of mom with a special Mother’s Day celebration. And help her to sink into much-deserved relaxation and tranquility with a trio of teas that we think make superb Mother’s Day gifts for go-go-go moms.
Teas for Mother’s Day: Bi Tan Piao Xue Jasmine Green
A week from Sunday, families across the United States will present their moms with bouquets and chocolates. They’ll take her to brunches, hold parties in her honor and shower her with praise and love. Mother’s Day is a special holiday, one we at Ku Cha hold close.
It’s also the most tea-forward holiday on the American calendar; while other celebrations revolve around candy, barbecues, presents and turkeys, Mother’s Day often involves afternoon teas, complete with finger sandwiches, scones, pots of warm tea and options for cream and honey. Naturally, this resonates with us!
Many traditional British high tea services hinge on black teas, especially those from India, the Darjeelings and Assams that have found such keen purchase across the United Kingdom for more than a century. Classic British blends sometimes incorporate Chinese black teas, too.
We embrace this tidy approach to tea enjoyment, but the world of tea encompasses a huge range of teas. We also thrill to showcasing highlights from across the tea world, and think Mother’s Day serves as a fantastic opportunity to explore.
To satisfy our theme of teas that ripen tranquility and peace, we suggest Bi Tan Piao Xue, which means “snow flakes falling upon a jade pond” in Chinese. The enchanting name describes the tea’s beautiful appearance — silver-lined tea buds blended with tender night-harvested jasmine blossoms — as well as the transportive experience of drinking this superb tea.The universe of tea supports a number of jasmine green teas, but Bi Tan Piao Xue is the finest of them all.
The green tea comes from Mountain Meng, one of the most ancient tea mountains in China. Soothing and sweet, this not only is our highest quality jasmine green tea — it’s also the most bewitching of all jasmine green teas. And due to its spellbinding flavors and aromas, we also find Bi Tan Piao Xue helps ratchet-down stress and conjure feelings of peace — just what mom needs, a world-class tea that also sparks tranquility.
Teas for Mother’s Day: An Ji White Green
Tea contains a diversity of plant botanicals that yield different health benefits. Some teas offer especially high concentrations of free-radical-fighting antioxidants, which help mitigate inflammation and heal damaged cells. Other teas’ balance of flavonoids, bioactive compounds that reduce oxidative stress and mute inflammation, is especially bountiful.
Our An Ji White green tea, a unique kind of Camellia sinensis harvested only in early spring, contains a high level of theanine, which is a calming amino acid. While the presence of theanine helps to deliver calm and serenity for mom, the amino acid also softens the bitterness that is natural to tea, making the tea slightly sweet.
It’s a beautiful and treasured tea in China, and we are keen to introduce it to a wider audience in the United States — beginning with moms!
Teas for Mother’s Day: Milk Oolong
Milk oolong is our most popular flavored oolong. Its ability to attract fans comes not because of its rarity and finesse, as with Bi Tan Piao Xue jasmine green tea, nor because of its delicacy and abundance of theanine.
Instead, milk oolongs widespread approval stems, quite simply, from its flavor and texture. It’s downright addictive. The flavor alone is so captivating that it always manages to steady nerves and bring about peace of mind.
Tea artisans in China steam this unique oolong with a non-dairy creamer before roasting the leaves, a novel process that provides milk oolong with its arresting and creamy flavor.
Ready to beguile mom with a taste that captures her heart, with flavors so winning that they help her to relax and just sink into the beauty of the moment? Look no further than our acclaimed milk oolong.
