5 Teas To Be Thankful For This Holiday Season

When Thanksgiving rolls around, the big table question—meaning, the one question you can bring to a table of family members who you might not know or see for the rest of the year, who you might not be sure if it’s safe to tell them about your budding tea obsession—is the classic:

What are you thankful for? Friends. Family. Special someone. A pet! (Heck, it could be hashtags of pets. Do you have any idea how many times my sanity has been saved by just well-timed husky video yawping “I love you,” or reels of small-butted French bulldogs tapping their paws in the universal doggie language of happy dance?)

With that in mind, we can also think about the teas that remind us of those things that we’re thankful for.

So! Let’s explore different teas that remind us of friends, family, a special someone, pets, and… wild card. (Stick around, you’ll see at the end of the article.)

1. Butterfly Pea Flower - Tea for Friends

How do your friends make you feel? What thoughts, flavors, and colors arise? One of our favorite ingredients for blends that invoke friendship is butterfly pea flower. (If you haven’t tried it yet, or if you would like it in more bulk for your own blending, then you can also get this beautiful blossom by itself at Selefina Spices, sister company to Adagio Teas, Masters Teas, Adagio Bees, and Lardera Coffee.)

Butterfly Pea Flower is friendship-is-magical because it’s one of the few known food additives that naturally change your dish’s color to a wonderful blue or purple hue, depending on what else might be added to it— much the same way as a good friendship can instantly change the color of your day into something unexpected and new. Some of our favorite blends that include this ingredient are: Bella Luna Blue and Purple Papayaberry Iced Tea.

How’s that for a friend for all seasons?

2. Chamomile - Tea for Family

Soft, soothing, and pretty darn good at putting you to sleep — is there anything else like family you can rely on? We love chamomile here for its floral-vegetal after-flavor and the way it blends so smoothly with other herbs while being so wonderfully subtle about its presence. Chamomile has a great way of being there for you without expressly enforcing the fact that it’s there, plus it can be steeped for more than five minutes. (Five is the ideal, but more is possible if you happen to forget it by accident, and it won’t go bitter on you even if you’re using boiling water. No guarantees if you go for half an hour or more, though… Then you’re on your own.)

Some of our favorite blends that include chamomile are the minty-sweet rooibos-derived Foxtrot, the dance of soft and sweet-smoothly lemongrass-infused Cha Cha, and of course the classic 40 Winks for when the party is over.

3. Chocolate - Tea for a Special Someone

You might have seen this coming, even outside of Valentine’s Day— but what’s this? Chocolate in a tea? Yes! Adagio has an amazing array of blends that feature chocolate chips, cacao, and cacao nibs for any time of the year. This imparts a rich and deeply indulgent accent on the tea and allows you the sense of being yourself with someone else, which can be the best and most fulfilling sense of partnership of them all.

With an intro like that, just gotta dive right into the recommendations! For chocolate love, we highly recommend trying out Valentines (of course— it doesn’t have to be February), Chocolate Truffle, Pu Erh Chorange, and Black Forest Cake.

4. Mint - Tea for a Pet

Now, please don’t give any tea to your pet, first and foremost! Always check with your vet or furbaby’s medical practitioner first.

That being said, the reason why we chose mint for pets is because there’s nothing like the feeling of snuggling your four-legged/-winged/-scaled/-etc friend after they’ve had a fresh bath. That wonderful minty freshness! It’s so delightful to feel how happy they are once they’re squeaky clean, and you’re happy too— so why not celebrate?

Some great teas to capture that feeling are Minty Comfort, White Chocolate Peppermint, and the classics Peppermint and Spearmint respectively.

5. Wild card - Tea for You!

Yes, be thankful for yourself! And there’s no better way to do it than formulating a signature blend on Adagio’s blending page that expresses who you are and what magic you bring to the world that no one else can replicate.

What are your favorite teas that you’re thankful for this season? Let us know in the comments!

Cheers!

Natasha Nesic

NASM Certified Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach, Founder of Work Life Fitness