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Not your typical herbal tea
When tea drinkers think of herbal teas, they imagine lightly colored infusions with floral and fruity flavors. Most brands sell tea bags with at the most 2 grams of herbs per bag. Even if the teas contain heartier herbs, like peppermint or rooibos, the infusion still has a light and watery body.
Not Teeccino! Our herbal teas are deeply robust, full-bodied infusions that are dark in color and have a wide variety of flavors to meet many different taste preferences. However, one thing they all have in common is our signature roasted herbs that produce that unique depth and body that Teeccino is famous for.
And importantly, they have 6 grams of herbs in each tea bag – three times more than other brands put in theirs!
How do we get that rich, bold flavor?
When I set out to create Teeccino, I wanted to match the flavor of coffee because, being so sensitive to caffeine and acidity, drinking coffee is out of the question for me.
Yet I do so love a roasted brew! I surveyed a number of herbs that were drunk as coffee alternatives around the world.
Foremost among them is chicory root, which the French have made famous as their secret ingredient in ‘French Coffee’ – the coffee of choice in New Orleans. Chicory is an amazing plant with many species, some of which you find in your salad bowl (think Radicchio!). The root has the highest amount of inulin, a natural prebiotic found in many foods, but no tin concentrations as high as that of chicory. Roasted chicory became a core ingredient in all my Teeccino blends and puts prebiotic benefits for good gut health in every cup.
Roasted barley is the favorite roasted coffee replacement of the Italians where you can find it in every coffee bar and restaurant. It’s also enjoyed in Asia where Koreans and Japanese love it as a cold beverage for a spring tonic tea but the Chinese drink it hot. When thinking about creating a tea that tastes like coffee, roasted “orzo”, as the Italians call barley, was a must to include in my blends.
In countries surrounding the Mediterranean, you find roasted carob pods are often used as a chocolate replacement. When brewed into a tea, roasted carob has a delicious, light sweetness due to its chocolate-like flavor. Carob is high in antioxidants and contains pinitol, a phytonutrient that helps produce a natural energy boost. Of course, I had to include it in my Teeccino blends!
Our secret - wild ingredients!
Back in the early ‘90s, I dedicated myself to helping preserve the rainforest by finding and importing non-timber forest products to give economic value to standing trees. I was excited to find that the Maya civilization drank a roasted brew made from ramón seeds produced by an upper canopy tree in Central American forests. Once I tasted a brew made from this roasted seed, I had to have it for Teeccino.
I pioneered the collection of ramón seeds by working with the Guatemalan government and ultimately the villagers in the Maya Biosphere Reserve to figure out how to dry the seeds and roast them. With the help of great partnerships in Guatemala, we have been buying ramón seeds for our dark roasted Maya blends for more than 20 years. The harvest of this non-timber crop has fulfilled my commitment to help people in Guatemala live in harmony with nature by becoming good stewards of the forest!
In Eastern Europe, dandelions grow wild everywhere. The roasted dandelion roots are used as a cleansing herbal tea to help stimulate the liver, gallbladder and kidneys, thereby promoting their organ function to eliminate toxins from the body.
Roasted dandelion roots have a bitter flavor, which stimulates the bitter receptors that are spread throughout our bodies and help produce these good health benefits. I created Teeccino’s Dandelion Herbal Teas to replace barley with roasted dandelion roots for certified gluten-free blends that feature both their coffee-like flavor and their detoxifying health benefits.
These five roasted herbs – with their unique cultural traditions of being drunk around the world for both their flavor and health benefits – give Teeccino its robust, full-body brew that make it unique among all herbal teas. Just like coffee, you can enjoy it with milk, non-dairy milk or creamer.
Unlike nearly all herbal teas that are too light to combine well with milk or creamer, Teeccino pairs beautifully with the creamy notes and silky body of any dairy or non-dairy additions. Now you know why Teeccino is known as the herbal tea that tastes like coffee!
