Celestial Seasonings - A Tea-riffic Tour!

I don't particularly like tea, but Meghann does, so upon our arrival in Denver, Colorado, we immediately went to Boulder (45 minute drive from the airport) to visit the Celestial Seasonings Factory. After visiting the factory I can definitely say I dislike tea a lot less. The opportunity to taste as many of the 89 flavors they make definitely made me rethink my feelings toward the flavored water.

Upon arrival, we received two tea bags as tickets for the upcoming tour starting twenty minutes later.

No reservations are necessary for the tour and people were steadily arriving the entire time we were there. (Note: They don't allow kids under 5 years of age on the tour—not that they drink tea anyway). While we waited for our tour to begin, we could taste as many flavors of tea as we desired (kosher consumer note: just ask for a paper cup so you don't have to use the ceramic one they will hand you). This was one of the nicest features of the already free tour. And it was at this time when I learned the most important lesson about tea I may ever learn: no matter how disgusting the tea tastes, with enough sugar or honey, every tea has potential. To be honest though, there were some better tasting teas than others. I discovered I much prefer herbal tea to "regular" tea; I also quite like spice in my tea. This led me to my second lesson: Meghann doesn't like any of the same teas as me. Every time I found one I liked I'd offer Meghann a taste and she'd tell me each time, "I'm glad YOU like it," which is wife for 'that's gross.'

When we were called for our tour, we crammed into a theater for a ten minute video. But first we were welcomed by our tour guide named Stayshine. This was the first of many things on our trip to Colorado to remind us of the state's place as the hipster paradise of the midwest (Portland on the west; Brooklyn on the east coast). Anyway, the well-executed video gave a nice introduction to the company, what it stands for, its global resources and just how successful it has been, with an appropriate amount of personal touch. We then put on our hairnets, and for the elderly and hipsters among us, beardnets, and proceed to enter the factory (no pictures allowed).

Most factories are visually stimulating and/or stimulate your palate. With the exception of smelling yeast at brewery, the nose is rarely stimulated. This factory tour was an olfactory adventure (pun intended). We first entered a storage area, but not for the finished, packaged product, just the raw and finished tea product in huge bins towering to the tall ceiling. As we were warned, every step through the storage area presented a different smell, some more easily identifiable than the others, but nevertheless producing an abundance of sensory intrigue.

After learning more about the types of tea from Stayshine who, despite her young age, knew an impressive amount about each and every tea, their source and how the company acquired them, we entered the most intense part of the tour—the Mint Room. As we all know, since mint permeates and dominates everything it encounters, mint gets its own dedicated room which figuratively smacks you in the face upon entry, immediately clearing up any congestion you might have had. Quite an experience to say the least.

We then moved into the next part of the surprisingly, relatively small factory—the assembly line. The process was almost entirely automated; there were very few workers on the floor but it was an impressive operation nonetheless.

We weren't taken to see the finished product in storage, but we were told a lot about their dominance of the U.S. market and were introduced to their international ambition. We then entered a door exiting the factory and were deposited into the factory store to purchase anything and everything with the Celestial Seasonings logo (and their iconic Sleepytime bear) including a lot, but not all of their teas.

The Celestial Seasoning's factory tour was a great experience. We learned a lot about

something we knew nothing about. The tea market is much larger than we could have imagined—1.6 billion cups of tea are consumed a year! Oddly, there was nowhere on the entire campus to take a posed picture. Pictures were understandably not allowed on the tour itself, but in the tearoom, the factory store and even outside, there was no proper signage lending itself to a nice picture. We settled for one in front of the tea—not bad, but we should have been able to do better.

Kashrus Note: All Celestial Seasonings teas are kosher. As mentioned above, you can ask for a paper cup instead of the ceramic one they hand you for tastings when you walk in.

Overall Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Website: www.celestialseasonings.com/tours

Location: Boulder, CO

Affordability: Free

The Turkey Hill Experience

The Turkey Hill Experience is truly an experience! It’s an interactive, engaging, and craftily educational museum offering unlimited ice cream. Although I think you’re already sold on the “experience,” let’s get into some more detail.

The Turkey Hill Experience is less of a factory tour and more of an ice cream undertaking. At no point will you see ice cream being churned from milk, but you can take plain ice cream, add flavor and toppings to it, freeze it and eat it. My mouth is watering just thinking about this place again.

Let’s start from scratch. If you keep chalav yisrael, stop here. Well, maybe not. If you don’t mind not eating the ice cream, then you will still have a nice time in the interactive museum and play areas, but your experience will leave you feeling empty (from watching everyone else eat ice cream).

For everyone else, the website recommends you purchase your tickets ahead of time. That turned out to be a good idea as the Taste Lab (where you flavor and mix your own ice cream) is quite popular. If you aren’t doing the Taste Lab, you probably don’t need to purchase tickets in advance.

When you arrive at the Turkey Hill Experience, you’ll enter a parking lot with a Turkey Hill gas station (since we all know gas and ice cream are the two things which fuel America). There is a giant cow to greet you and then you essentially enter into the gift shop.

The Experience

The experience is fun, educational and tasty. Kids of all ages and adults will enjoy milking mechanical cows and producing ice cream commercials. There is a climbing area and a ball pit as well to “teach” you how to churn. You can even step into a freezer to feel what it is like to be an ice cream package. There is a lot more to do, but we don’t want to ruin the full experience for you.

It won’t be long before you scout out the UNLIMITED ice cream. Be careful if you are doing the Taste Lab though since you’re going to want to eat that customized ice cream too. There were plenty of choices but Meghann was especially happy since they had her favorite flavor Moose Tracks that day. The kids were happy since they had Fruit Rainbow sherbet, which was good for them, but everyone knows sherbet pales when compared to ice cream!

All that ice cream will leave you needing something to wash down all of that sweet sweet creamy sugar. Thankfully across from the ice cream is a Turkey Hill drink area full of fruit drinks and iced teas full of more sugar! Before you quench your thirst however, you can take the test to find a drink to match your personality. I think the results are random though. It felt like a fortune teller—odds are you like most of the drinks so whatever it tells you, you’ll be happy. Don’t let that dissuade you though. The drinks were delicious and they had most varieties available. My favorites are the lemonade fruit drink combinations (strawberry, blackberry, pomegranate and strawberry kiwi). Meghann likes just about all of the iced teas. We tried a lot of them, but nothing came close to the ones we already knew we liked. This was when we realized we no longer knew where our kids were. Not surprisingly, they turned out to be gorging themselves on…more ice cream.

The Taste Lab

Our favorite part of the Turkey Hill Experience was definitely the Taste Lab. For about thirty minutes you sit on bar stool and you get to make your own ice cream. You’ll receive a paper Turkey Hill hat upon entry which the kids will enjoy for about four minutes while we eagerly awaited instructions. The room is visually stimulating so with young kids there will be quite a bit of room management. 

Then the fun begins. You’ll get a large cup full of plain ice cream into which you’ll add a flavor from droppers. The flavors ranged from chocolate to cotton candy, all of which were appropriately labeled with a variety of hashgachos (kosher symbols). 

After mixing your flavor into the ice cream you’ll take turns going to the Inclusion Wall which had just about every topping you could ask for in your ice cream. This was definitely the worst part of the Taste Lab. Did I want sweet or salty, crunchy or chewy? The choices left me considering commandeering one of the kids' ice creams and making up a reason to punish them, but I resisted the temptation…barely. Once I settled on a few things…and then a few more…and then a few more, I sat back down in my seat. That’s when I saw my wife struggling with three kids and her own ice cream and considered going over to help. I hesitated walking into the tornado, but once it was over, the damage was only moderate, with only a few tears shed. Once we all sat down we added in the last glorious part to our ice cream, the viscous liquid (caramel, fudge, peanut butter, etc.). After that, we placed the ice cream in the freezer, took a cute quiz as a group, and walked out with our own ice cream concoction. Mission accomplished.

The Turkey Hill Experience is structured so you do the Taste Lab last. Since we arrived later than we expected, we ended up doing it first. The Taste Lab technicians were kind enough to let us leave our ice cream in the freezer until we were ready to leave. They didn't last long in the car ride home, but it was a nice souvenir to savor after leaving.

The whole experience should take about 60-90 minutes, but you can definitely spend more time there if you’d like. We try not to get distracted by gift shops and didn't spend any time there, but there was definitely plenty to buy.

Kashrus note: Most Turkey Hill products, ice cream and drinks, are certified OU-kosher. The items that are dairy are not chalav yisrael. In the Taste Lab, every item is clearly and conveniently labeled with a hasgacha.

Overall rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Website: www.turkeyhillexperience.com

Location: Columbia, PA

Affordability: $$
Nearby factories and attractions: National Watch & Clock Museum and Wolfgang Candy. (You can buy a joint ticket for Turkey Hill and Watch & Clock museum on the Turkey Hill website.)