OUR STORY

One morning in 1993 award-winning tea designer, Caroline MacDougall, awoke from a dream with a compelling vision to create a bold, robust brew from roasted herbs. She even dreamed the name of it would be Teeccino. Propelled by her own sensitivity to caffeine and acidity, Caroline designed Teeccino to satisfy both coffee and tea drinkers alike with its rich, full body and its many health benefits. Now years later, Teeccino is the #1 brand of coffee alternatives and the premier line of roasted herbal teas with over 35 organic and gluten-free blends. Often people ask, is it coffee or is it tea? Our answer is simple ~ it’s Teeccino!

OUR PHILOSOPHY

Our Company believes in supporting our customers’ optimal health and protecting life on our planet. These two principles guide all our decisions about our products and how we source their ingredients. By pioneering new trade for herbs harvested in rural communities, Teeccino creates economic opportunities where
income is scarce. Our Company is dedicated to the four “Ps”: purpose,
people, planet, and profits. To which we also add the fifth “P”:
passion, which fuels our dedication to service on behalf of the common
good

OUR PRODUCTS

Teeccino is a delicious blend of organic herbs like chicory, carob, dandelion or ramón seeds plus fruits and nuts that are roasted and ground to brew like coffee or steep like tea. All our products contain the highest quality ingredients without any artificial flavors, preservatives, chemicals or stimulants like caffeine and sugar. A cup of Teeccino brims with many health benefits including natural energy from nutrients, heart-healthy potassium and prebiotic inulin. If you’re new to Teeccino, we recommend our samplers that provide a variety of flavors to enjoy while discovering your favorites.

1993: The First Herbal Coffee:
A Dream Becomes Reality

Many creative people find inspiration through their dreams. For dreams to become reality however, a healthy amount of experience and energy must be part of the mix. With over 20 years of experience in the herbal tea industry, Teeccino’s founder Caroline MacDougall had formulated a wide variety of herbal beverages for numerous industry manufacturers by the time she launched Teeccino. In the fall of 1993 while Caroline was busy developing herbal teas for The Republic of Tea, she awoke to hear herself say, “The next product I want to develop is a caffeine-free cappuccino and the name of the product is Teeccino!” 

Caroline had created a wide variety of teas, but one gap remained – nowhere in the tea world was there a caffeine-free match for robust, roasted coffee. Teeccino was created to capture that unmistakable, rich Mediterranean flavor. 

1994: From the Cradle of the Mediterranean...

Caroline set to work in her kitchen, roasting and grinding herbs to see if she could produce a blend that could brew in espresso machines. While creating Teeccino, Caroline realized that all the ingredients she was using in the formula were originally from the Mediterranean and part of the healthy Mediterranean diet for centuries. She envisioned the package labels with a different Mediterranean image for each flavor. 

By the summer of 1994, Caroline began designing the Teeccino labels. Gina Amador, the designer of The Republic of Tea’s labels, took Caroline’s concepts and developed the luggage tag images from the Mediterranean using a different country and shape for each flavor. Jennifer Ewing, a San Francisco artist, produced original paintings for each Mediterranean scene.

As a tea drinker becoming initiated into the diverse world of coffee brewing, Caroline became intrigued with all the Mediterranean coffee brewing methods including drip coffee makers, the French press pot and the Italian stove-top espresso maker called the “Moka” pot. She expanded her original concept from making herbal cappuccinos in espresso machines to developing Teeccino to drip or brew just like coffee.  

1995: Teeccino Caffeine-Free Herbal Coffee Hits the Shelves!

At the Natural Products Expo in March of 1995, Teeccino Caffeine-Free Herbal Coffee was introduced to the natural and specialty food market. Soon shipments were rolling out to stores and distributors across the country.

A number of endorsements from healthcare practitioners and health educators helped to publicize Teeccino by recommending it in their best-selling books and newsletters. Word-of-mouth by customers telling friends and family along with health care practitioners recommending Teeccino to their patients propelled Teeccino’s growth.

Over the next 10 years, Teeccino grew to be the #1 brand of coffee alternatives in the USA. 

2005: Teeccino Organic Maya Blends Create New Trade

Caroline’s work helping Indigenous rainforest communities in Central America develop markets for their exportable products such as honey, vanilla and herbs during the early 1990’s came full circle with the launch of the Teeccino Organic Maya blends in 2005.

Featuring dark roasted ramón seeds, a nutrient-rich seed valued by the Maya civilization, Caroline intended for Teeccino Maya blends to create new trade for a novel ingredient that helps preserve the rainforest. Wild harvested from upper canopy trees in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala, ramón seeds were originally drunk as a roasted beverage by the Maya. 

With a clean, pure flavor profile that is preferred by those who enjoy dark-roasted, unsweetened coffee, the Maya blends broadened the appeal of Teeccino to meet the flavor preferences of more coffee drinkers. The Maya blends combine the best of the Mediterranean’s carob, barley and chicory with a coffee-like seed from Central American rainforests that is high in potassium, fiber, and tryptophan, the feel-good amino acid that the body converts into serotonin.

2010: Teeccino Introduces Roasted Herbal Teas

Teeccino became much more than a coffee alternative when the Company introduced its line of roasted herbal teas in 2010. Teeccino’s tea bags hold 6g of herbs, three times more herbs than standard 2g tea bags, delivering bold, roasted flavor with maximum health benefits.

For example, Teeccino’s tea bags can hold 2g of dandelion root like standard tea bags plus 4g more of other super herbs that bring more health benefits to every cup of Teeccino. With the convenience of tea bags, tea drinkers can enjoy the robust, full body of roasted herbal tea that combines perfectly with milk or creamer and get all the health benefits that has made Teeccino the best-loved coffee alternative. 

2011: Teeccino's Boutique
Flavors Meet Growing Demand from Teeccino Fans

In response to a survey of 2700 Teeccino fans who voted for their favorite flavors that they wanted Teeccino to produce, Caroline created Teeccino’s Boutique blends to be sold exclusively on Teeccino.com. With limited shelf availability in retail stores, Teeccino’s Boutique collection offers a wider array of blends including holiday and seasonal flavors. Using both Mediterranean and Maya flavor profiles for medium and dark roasted blends, fans can now indulge in blends such as Pumpkin Spice, Snickerdoodle, Gingerbread, Chocolate Raspberry and Southern Pecan as either herbal teas or herbal coffees.

2013: Dandelion Blends are launched

Responding to the demand for certified gluten-free herbal coffees & teas, Caroline created a new collection of Dandelion blends that are 100% barley free which the Company launched at Expo West in 2013. Serendipitously, dandelion root began receiving media attention from Dr. Oz and other media luminaries for its detoxification properties due to its bitter flavor profile and diuretic effects that stimulate the liver and kidneys. Blended with other super herbs, Teeccino’s Dandelion Collection includes blends like Dandelion Turmeric and Dandelion Red Chai that have a more tea-like flavor profile.

2020: Teeccino’s Colorful New Look Plus Two New Collections of Wellness Blends

In celebration of Teeccino’s 25-year anniversary in 2020, the Teeccino team decided to do a complete brand refresh by developing beautiful new packaging using bold colors to distinguish between its collections. Leaving behind the geographically-themed artwork from its original packaging, beautiful new mandalas were created for each collection based on the botanicals that distinguish each one.

Teeccino’s mission to help its customers achieve optimal health motivated Caroline
to craft two new blend collections with heightened wellness benefits that expand Teeccino’s range of health effects and meet our customers’ needs.

Teeccino’s six new Mushroom Adaptogen blends optimally pair wellness mushrooms and adaptogenic herbs to fortify the body’s defenses and help it adapt to all kinds of stress. Teeccino’s three new Prebiotic SuperBoost™ blends deliver a healthy dose of plant‑based prebiotic concentrates to help restore gut health and support the immune system. In these times of increased disruption and health challenges, producing Teeccino wellness blends that help reduce stress and its effects on gut health and immunity is fully aligned with our values.