Honor the Beaver Moon and Its Industrious Namesake With These Teas for Stocking Up
It’s going to be a colorful election day next week. In addition to the spectacle of American democracy at work, November’s full moon, the Beaver Moon, will rise on Nov. 8. It should be a doozy — a total lunar eclipse, which happens about every two and a half years when the moon, sun and Earth line up, with Earth in the middle. The unique celestial arrangement causes Earth’s shadow to cast upon the moon, normally coloring the rocky body in reddish, coppery hues. These moons are also called “blood” moons.
For centuries, people around the world have given each month’s full moon different names. Many of the names we embrace in the United States come from Native Americans, and they often refer to nature. The Algonquin in what is now eastern Canada, for example, called the November full moon the Whitefish Moon, referring to the spawning time for the fish.
Professor Beaver Teaches Us Important Lessons
It’s unclear which tribes called the November moon the Beaver Moon, although it comes from tribes in the far north, especially in Canada. The logic behind the naming revolves around two things. For one, tribal people in November would start trapping beaver in November, to get warm pelts before the full force of winter settled in. For another, in November beavers begin stocking up on food for the winter. They don’t hibernate like bears, and the plants they rely upon for sustenance vanish once winter takes over. So industrious beavers prepare, by harvesting and storing their favorite foods in their cozy dams.
We love this. Thank you, Professor Beavers! We all should follow your lead. Don’t take anything for granted. Stock up now for when resources grow scarce — because inevitably, they will. For many of us, life is a see-saw between abundance and scarcity; smart planning helps attenuate the distances between the highs and the lows.
This approach toward life revolves around much more consquential matters than tea. But it applies to our prized beverage, too. Nobody likes running out of their favorite tea! The Beaver Moon got us thinking about good teas to have on hand all of the time, and for different times of the day.
Now that November is almost here, think like a beaver and start stocking up!
Teas For Stocking Up in Morning: Hot Cinnamon
Starting the day with black tea is an excellent idea: it’s bold in flavor, rich in texture and offers a caffeine jolt. This tea leads with black tea, but then it ups the wallop factor with three types of cinnamon, orange peel and cloves. How’s that for a morning wake-up.
In many ways, our Hot Cinnamon tea verges on chai; the cinnamon and cloves would find welcome homes in many chais. But while the orange also complements chai, it’s not as traditional as the baking spices, as well as common chai ingredients like turmeric, pepper and vanilla.
Either way, we champion this tea for its powerful flavor, which helps rouse our fuzzy morning brains and enlivens our taste buds. Sip it with a pre-work pastry. Drink mugs of it across the morning, until it’s time for lunch. Once you try this arresting tea, you’ll keep wanting more. Which means it’s time to stock up!
Teas for Stocking Up in Afternoon: Earl Grey Green Tea
Our customers love Earl Grey tea, and so do we. The tidy jolt of bergamot, a citrus fruit native to the Italian coast, transforms the tea into something unique and magnetic. There’s a reason it was Queen Elizabeth’s favorite tea — it is fantastic.
Black tea, often one of the many outstanding black teas from India, serves as the backbone of traditional Earl Grey tea. We embrace the classic, but in the afternoons often don’t desire the heavier caffeine and bold flavors that characterize it. Yet Earl Grey’s flavors enchant us, no matter the time of day.
Enter, Earl Grey Green Tea. This delightful variation combines a soft green tea with the same bright oil of bergamot that infuses traditional Earl Grey. To further the flavor, we also add complementary citrus, lemon peel and orange blossom. The result is a true stunner.
Brew a pot of this tea at lunch, and drink it across the afternoon for brief jolts of caffeine and hauntingly pretty flavors that capture the essence of traditional Earl Grey, but soften some of its edges and infuse it with other citrus pleasures.
Pro tip: Add a dollop of honey to the tea; it marries wonderfully with the flavors.
Teas for Stocking Up in Evening: Pumpkin Rooibos
This caffeine-free beauty, a new one to Ku Cha, returns us to those chai flavors we discussed with Hot Cinnamon, but adds leaves from the South African shrub rooibos to the formula, along with mighty pumpkin.
It’s stunning. For those who thrill to getting their PSL (pumpkin spice latte) on every autumn, Pumpkin Rooibos offers a twist. It’s so good you won’t just crave it when the jack-o’-lanterns appear, and the leaves take on bold colors and then fall; you’ll crave this tea across winter and into spring.
Our Pumpkin Rooibos leads with rooibos, a botanical famously loaded with free-radical-fighting electrolytes. Free radicals damage cells and lead to inflammation. Electrolytes pursue beserker free radicals, and vanquish them. One fringe benefit? They help quench thirst, meaning this tea not only optimizes health and tastes wonderful — it also aids the body’s ability to fully incorporate the benefits of water, leaving sippers feeling satisfied.
In addition to earthy pumpkin, this tea includes cinnamon, cardamom, coriander and clove, a quartet of especially warming spices.
