Hippie blends

Tisanes prepared from plants not belonging to the Camellia genus
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mbanu
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Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:31 pm

mbanu wrote:
Fri Feb 25, 2022 5:27 pm


I think this commercial shows the other part of the secret -- as the 1980s progressed, they made an active effort through advertising to de-hippie their teas, or as this one's slogan puts it, "Herb Teas... more tastefully done." Most of their competitors did not seem to try to make this transformation.
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By 1987 this approach had been successful enough that the traditional tea-packers were introducing their own herbal tea lines to try to get a piece of the market. Herbal tea had become mainstream enough among Americans that ads could say things like, "Not your ordinary cup of herbal tea.", suggesting people were familiar enough with herbal tea for some types to be ordinary.

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Bigelow was a little earlier than Lipton, I think, but seemed to follow Lipton's lead afterwards. "Feeling Free" lost its freedom to become Hibiscus & Rose Hips, for instance.

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mbanu
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Mon Feb 28, 2022 7:51 pm

As the 80s turned into the 90s, Celestial Seasonings, Thomas J. Lipton, and R.C. Bigelow became the top three, controlling 97% of the market, with the remaining 3% I suppose divided between the smaller competitors like Traditional Medicinals and Good Earth and the handful of shops that still sold loose-leaf unflavored herbal tea blends along the lines of the original 70s shops.

When Lipton decided to use their tea-money to just buy out Celestial, Bigelow sued, leading to an enormous legal battle -- https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

As the 1990s progressed, Celestial's de-hippification process was basically complete, commercials and teas were mostly along the lines of this:



In some ways more resembling Lipton than their former selves.



By 1995, even the connection to herbal tea was getting a little tenuous...

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The fall-out of the legal battle would remain in the popular consciousness, though -- it got its own gag on the Conan O'Brien show in 2003. :)

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mbanu
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Tue Mar 01, 2022 10:57 am

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Nowadays it seems to have gone full circle -- the young artists of the 1970s who were attracted to Celestial Seasonings by its natural reputation replaced by the young artists of today critical of its lack of naturalness.

(Meanwhile, Celestial has decided to wake the bear up for advertising purposes.)

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mbanu
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Wed Mar 02, 2022 2:42 pm

mbanu wrote:
Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:12 pm
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Regarding Ms. Gladstar's start managing the herbal section of a natural foods store, I think for most Americans, the herbal section of a natural food store is fairly easy to picture, as many of the remaining ones have not changed since the 1970s. For folks from elsewhere who might be curious (or from an area of the U.S. where they have all closed), here is one from 1979. :)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xGsmmT8Qw ... 66&end=457
John_B
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Sun Mar 06, 2022 10:05 pm

I started on drinking tisanes, not "real teas," about 20 years before I did much with better tea. The hippie theme was a part of that. I was living in Vail, Colorado in the early 90s and got into teas and tisanes through products like Tazo teas, which mixed both. If better real tea had been around I would've started tea interest then, but tisanes were instead, in "hippie" shops. Of course I was drinking Celestial Seasonings blends then too, which were mainstream by that time, nearly 20 years after these early starting points covered in this thread.

Tisanes kept being available in natural foods shops, in other places I lived like Austin, Texas, and later yet Honolulu. The "hippie" angle died down and it was more just about organic foods and such, but the two never really fully uncoupled. I didn't experience better loose tea until I traveled in places like Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Japan, and China, and it was mainstream and all over the place then. In retrospect I was still running across so-so quality versions, but it was decent loose tea.

One early hippie shop in the Vail Valley sold blends with names like "Immuni-tea." Now that seems timeless, pushing a health angle and using tea puns for branding. I don't think I knew anyone else there into herb teas like I was, but there must have been some of them around, since a few shops stayed in business. Sort of mainstream brands like Alvita cut ties with any such sub-culture reference, and tried to normalize the form of plain herbs (so not the point here, but someone could mix those on their own).

Being in my 50s I always wonder if factors like drinking a lot of tisanes, juicing (not steroids), or spending a long time as a vegetarian had significant positive health impact. But you don't get to know what led to what, and avoiding sugar and junk food was probably a more significant factor, and exercise, getting decent sleep, etc.
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mbanu
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Sat Mar 26, 2022 8:55 pm

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Another one which is grandfathered in from an earlier health movement but that is strongly associated with hippie blends today is papaya leaf-peppermint tea. As far as I can tell, it was originally promoted by the nutritionist Gayelord Hauser in the 1940s under the brand Pa-Yo-Mint. Modern Products Inc. is still around, but no longer seems to sell herbal tea.

Lhasa Karnak out of Berkeley (https://lhasakarnak.com) is an older shop that carries a papaya-mint blend.
John_B
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Sat Apr 02, 2022 1:20 am

I haven't experimented with making a tisane out of any fresh growing plant material, but papaya leaves and pine needles are exceptions. I went on an extended phase of trying papaya leaves prepared and dried in different ways, cut up or whole, dried slowly or quickly, roasted or not. The leaves are bitter, and using more whole versions offsets that, or roasting can, a little. I'm not so sure about the slower drying process, trying to "cure" them.

Supposedly they're very healthy, and drinking them brewed offsets impact of dengue fever. There are a lot of papaya trees growing in our yard right now (we live in Bangkok), but I've not tried them as a tisane again for a few years.
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