Tea time with Celestial Seasonings' new SKUs

New Hope editors showcase their creative writing skills to review this legacy tea brand's newest and seasonal offerings.

Jenna Blumenfeld, Freelancer

November 17, 2016

7 Slides
Tea time with Celestial Seasonings' new SKUs

It’s indisputable that Boulder, Colorado is a launch pad for natural products.

From Justin’s Nut Butter to Hope Hummus, this bustling town in the Rockies offers an ideal environment to incubate natural brands into existence. Chalk it up to the popular farmers market where fledgling companies can test product formulations, retailers that prioritize stocking local products, a supportive group of fellow natural products entrepreneurs and passionate healthy consumers interested in natural eating (think about it—running up a mountain every morning is harder if you eat McDonald's for breakfast).

But you can’t talk about the natural food scene in Boulder without mentioning Celestial Seasonings, the herbal tea company born in 1969 when founder Mo Siegel wandered into the Rocky Mountains, collected wild herbs and sold them in hand-sewn muslin bags.

Nearly 50 years later, Celestial Seasonings sells 105 varieties of tea and makes more than 1.6 billion cups of tea per year. But the company still upholds Siegel’s values of environmental stewardship, conscious sourcing and health. Plus, transparency is clearly a tenet: Incredibly, Celestial Seasonings hosts 2.1 million visitors annually to tour its manufacturing facility, which happens to be located a stone’s throw from the New Hope Network office. So when our content team was invited to tour the facility, we wholeheartedly accepted.

There, we spoke with Celestial Seasoning’s General Manager David Ziegert, who has worked for the company for 22 years. He discussed at length the brand’s recent return to classic packaging, emblazoned with whimsical original artwork inspired by the tea flavors and ingredient. Consumers lamenting that the tea drinking experience was hindered by sleek new packaging largely drove this decision.

But sometime between today’s restored packaging and the hand-sewn muslin bags sold by Siegel, Celestial Seasonings went through a phase where they published mini-essays on the tea boxes… inspiring, poetic stories honoring the tea. Longtime Boulder resident and New Hope’s own supplements and ingredients editor Todd Runestad happened to contribute a slew of such essays on Celestial Seasoning’s tea boxes way back when—and they were really good!

For example, here’s the mini-essay that appeared on Celestial Seasoning’s Decaf Lemon Myrtle Tea:

serendipity.jpg

Pretty moving, right?

Motivated by our recent visit to the facility (which smelled like lemongrass during our tour) and Runestad’s words, here, New Hope editors pay homage to Celestial Seasoning’s newest and seasonal tea offerings by flexing our artistic prowess.

About the Author

Jenna Blumenfeld

Freelancer

Jenna Blumenfeld lives in Boulder, Colorado, where she reports on the natural products industry, sustainable agriculture, and all things plant based. 

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