Saturday morning began late, we had a very lazy morning and spent the time updating the blog and reading. We even had our breakfast of fruit and yogurt in bed. Just what we needed after a busy few days.
Around 11am we felt it was time to get ready and head out for the day. We never had much planned but did know that we wanted to visit the 'Celestial Seasonings' factory, so we headed of to Boulder and Sleepytime Drive - Celestial Seasonings are a tea company specialising in herbal and fruit infusions since the 60's and are a leading brand in the States, but not sold in the UK.
Arriving at the factory, we spotted a ton of Prairie Dogs as we drove up to park the car, such characters. When we arrived we were given a 1pm slot for the free tour, we had about 20 minutes to go so while we waited we were able to sampled the teas that were out. They had about 6 teas made up to try and would make up any of their extensive collection at your request. For some reason we didn't take any photos apart from one with the sleepytime tea bear ( sleepytime being their best selling tea and the bear that appears on the box's artwork).
It was soon time to don our hairnets and in Paul's case a beard net as well, and we were ready to enter the working factory. The tour is a nice little history of the company and jaunt around the factory, we checked out the tea plant room where they have small amount of black, white and green tea to add to some of their blends then onto the peppermint room where they store all of the mint used in their teas, it was a glorious smell of a little overwhelming. As it was a Saturday there wasn't much happening in the factory so didn't really see the machines at work - however we both agreed that our favourite was the "tea bagging" machine, yes we are not 15 years old but innuendos like that do make us snigger!
The tour is well worth doing if you find your self in the area with a bit of time. After stocking up on teas in the shop, including both old favourites and some new ones we've yet to try we went back to the car.
On opening the boot - or trunk to you Americans - we were overwhelm by the smell of beer. On closer inspection we realised that one of the cans of beer we picked up had managed to be punctured and half the floor was wet through and now smelt like a brewery - very poor form!
Not really having any plans we hit up 'the Rayback Collective" at Boulder.
It's a great concept, a bar selling craft beers and a coffee bar, then they have 2-3 food trucks which change half way through the day. We thoroughly enjoyed the fresh hand rolled pasta with garlic alfresco sauce that we share along with a crooked stave sour rose wild ale from Devour for me, whilst Paul stuck with coke.
We decided that we would head back to the Airbnb via Walgreens for Paul to pick up some medicated lip salve, as his lips seemed to have dried out like the desert and Starbucks for coffee to go.
Around 6.30 we headed out, yes in search of more food and beer! After passing several restaurant none of which we fancied, we found ourselves back at Wonderland brewery again.
We sat outside enjoying the last of the daylight sharing a mushroom flatbread and for me, a pumpkin-delicious ale and a "ickle" pour of silverball stout while Paul enjoy pints of 3-putt pale ale and one he can't remember, must be his age!
We both suddenly came over tired - maybe the altitude getting to us - a windy walk back with a few spots of rain in the air, lucky we had coats and hats, a very quick stop at Wholefoods for breakfast supplies and we were home and straight to bed.
Fact of the Day - The difference between black, green and white tea - To make black tea, the leaf is first rolled and crushed so it oxidised. Green tea is the same leaves but are quickly steamed to minimise oxidation. And fine white tea is made by harvesting the leaves before they are fully open a few days of the year with minimal processing.
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