Welcome to a magic world of tea! There is a hidden gem in Boulder, Co that is just waiting to be explored and tasted. It’s the Celestial Seasoning Tea Factory located at 4600 Sleepytime Drive. But it is so much more than just a factory. Actually, there is a tea manufacturing factory, a tea ingredient storage area, a tea cafe, a tea art gallery, and a tea tasting room.
The Celestial Seasoning company knows how to do tea, and they know how to invite their customers into the tea making business. Right from the start, you can tell the tour is designed with customers in mind. When you arrive at the factory, you are welcomed into the tea tasting room, where you can sample unlimited tea while you wait for the tour to begin. They have all these cozy nooks, and seating areas for you to lounge while you sample. Celestial Seasonings make more than 105 different varieties of tea to sample. You can try relaxing herbal teas to energizing chai and matcha lattes and everything in between.
The tours start every hour, on the hour and take about 45 minutes. They start with a 10-minute video that explains the history of tea-making and how Celestial Seasonings got its start in Boulder, Co. Everyone is then required to don a hair net and a beard net (for all the hipster guys) before the factory tour begins. The tour guides are extremely knowledgeable and the factory has a microphone system built in so you can always hear the guide.
The factory is fully automated so you get to see some pretty awesome robots and conveyor belts making all the tea bags and boxing them up for distribution. No photos allowed so you’ll have to actually visit yourself to see the factory cranking out millions of tea bags. Celestial Seasonings makes over 1 billion cups of tea a year!
You are allowed to walk the factory floor and see the areas where they store all the ingredients. The ingredient storage area smells like a trip through the West Indies and Spice Islands. The most infamous room is the Peppermint Room. The scent of peppermint is powerful, minty-fresh, camphoraceous, cool, and distinctive fragrance. It will certainly clear your sinuses and you can feel the cool, crispness at the bottom of your lungs.
At the end of the tour, you can visit the gift shop and buy all the flavors they make including exotic flavors (which are sometimes hard to find in the store), but they also have every tea accessory you can imagine as well. From there you can visit the Tea Cafe, or the Tea Art Gallery and see all the unique teapots you can imagine.
Or like me, you can go back to the tea tasting room and continue to sample hot teas for the rest of the day. And, yes, we did find out that the employees are allowed to drink all the tea they want every day! All in all, this was a great tour. The company really takes pride in making this a memorable experiences for the 2.1 million people that visit every year. And the best part is that it is completely free!
There are no photos allowed on the factory floor and quite a few factory rules to follow, so be sure to read ahead and check the tour schedule before you go.
You can read more about Celestial Seasonings tours before you visit!
