Linden: Tea Leaves and Herbal Infusion

The overpowering smell of mint fills your nostrils as you step into the peppermint room.

We are in the factory for Celestial Seasonings Tea. It is just outside of Boulder on Sleepytime Lane. We are getting a tour of the factory.

For the last 15 minutes different smells have bewildered our noses. Chamomile, green tea, lemon grass, clove.

We start the tour with a ticket that is actually a package of tea--to be precise, Black Cherry Berry herbal infusion. We learn that real tea always includes tea leaves. Everything else is an herbal infusion. But that sounds bad so they call it tea.

We learn that Sleepytime is the best selling tea Celestial Seasonings makes. Another thing we learn is that the factory can make up to one million packages of tea a day during the busy season, during the cold months from October to April. And, we learn that if they left the door of the peppermint room open, you could smell the mint two miles away.

It was a beautiful factory, and it was the best smelling factory I've ever been in.