Teeccino - The Perfect Warm Drink for a Winter’s Afternoon
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Caroline MacDougall- longtime Santa Barbara resident and Teeccino founder and CEO
As the days get shorter and the nights get colder, I find myself seeking out a cup of something warm and tasty. This is the perfect way to shift from busy to quiet; from out in the world to indoor cozy. Whether tucking in with a good book or sharing a warm hearth with friends and family, this is one of the perks of this time of year. Delightfully, on a recent chilly afternoon, my daughter invited me to sit down with a cup of her new favorite beverage– Teeccino. Have you heard of it?
Teeccino (pronounced tea-chee-no) is the creation of herbal product innovator Caroline MacDougall. Neither tea nor coffee, Teeccino is a delicious coffee-esque drink that’s robust like coffee, caffeine-free like herbal tea, and, when combined with frothy milk, as yummy as a cappuccino. This was Caroline’s intention.
Though I’ve known Caroline for many years and respected her as a master herbal beverage designer and businesswoman, I was curious to find out more about how all this happened. So, I invited her to breakfast at Jeannine’s the other morning and she recounted her journey into the world of herbs (she brought the tea bags!).
Way back when Caroline was in high school working in a health food store, she discovered the books of Juliette de Baïracli Levy, a renowned English herbalist and author noted for pioneering work with Bedouin nomads, indigenous tribes and gypsies. A few years later, as a fearless young woman traveling to Sudan and Egypt buying herbs for Celestial Seasoning, Caroline went in search of her inspiration and found Levy living with her herd of goats and Afghan hounds on the Balearic Island of Formentera. Each summer during her annual herb buying trip, Caroline sought out Levy from island to island in the Mediterranean wherever she was. As Caroline explained: “At that time, there were no courses in herbal medicine, so I learned by traveling, seeing where herbs came from, tasting them, studying with Juliette, and reading herbals.”
Over the next few years, Caroline continued to follow her passion, growing and blending herbs to create teas, herbal cigarettes, and homeopathic products. You may have encountered some of her tea blends in the collections of Yogi Tea, The Republic of Tea or Organic India.
After being inspired by a dream to create a caffeine-free cappuccino, Caroline began testing various herbal combinations in her kitchen to see if she could find a blend that would deliver the taste satisfaction of cappuccino without the acidity and jitters from coffee. She launched Teeccino a few years later in 1996. Today, it is the number one coffee alternative around the world. From the beginning, Caroline’s mission has been to “bring the health benefits of herbs to everybody’s cup!”
Alice Foote MacDougall, “the only woman coffee expert” in the 1920s.
It could be said that Caroline’s entrepreneurial interest in plants and brewing warm beverages was in her DNA. You see, her great grandmother, Alice Foote MacDougall, was in the coffee business in NYC in the early 1900s, back when people would buy green coffee beans at the store and roast them at home. Caroline’s ancestor happened to roast a pretty good bean, and she began selling it to her friends when she suddenly found herself the sole provider for her three children. This little enterprise morphed into one of the top chains of restaurants in the 1920s in NYC. Recognizing the generational contribution to her success, Caroline likes to say that “Alice must be over-lighting this journey.”
“It’s not coffee. It’s not tea. It’s Teeccino. Whether you brew it like coffee or steep it like tea, it’s still the same Teeccino.”
The Product. A wide variety of roasted herbal teas featuring chicory, dandelion, and medicinal mushrooms with flavors such as Candy Cane, Snickerdoodle, Vanilla Nut, French Roast, Reishi Eleuthero, or Dark Chocolate. Depending on your personal taste, you can brew the roasted blends just like coffee or steep a tea bag like an herbal tea. The upside is that these coffee alternatives have hardly any calories, no caffeine or acidity and a lot of health benefits.
“Originally I just wanted Teeccino to be caffeine free and taste delicious but health benefits, like Teeccino being great for digestion, were revealed later from our customers testimonials!”
Health Benefits. What if there was a coffee substitute that augmented physical-mental wellbeing? And, what if it also satisfied the emotional desire for a cup of something hot without disturbing your digestion or sleep? Without getting too technical, Caroline explained how the herbal ingredients in Teeccino support gut and cardiovascular wellbeing. Just drinking a cup of Teeccino every day supports good digestion and immunity with prebiotics and lowers stress. And it is caffeine free!
The caffeine in coffee and tea doesn’t really work for many people. It jangles nerves, upsets digestion, and disturbs sleep. And, like any addictive substance, consumption tends to increase as time goes on. Shifting to a lower caffeine load or going all herbal makes sense as we get older. But, even young people complain that feeling the coffee buzz can be at times unpleasant and, in many ways, unproductive.
“I recently made a discovery–Teeccino– and it’s the best coffee substitute I’ve tasted. It is delicious and makes great caffeine-free cappuccinos and lattes” - Andrew Weil, M.D.
Social-emotional Benefits. “What are you thinking about when you want to have a warm drink? What motivates you?” When Teeccino asked the 60,000 plus newsletter subscribers these questions, over 70% of respondents were looking for a comforting taste experience. In Caroline’s words, “They’re really thinking about what they want emotionally…what they get from sitting down and having a warm cup of something delicious to drink”.
The ritual of preparing the beverage, sitting down, and wrapping your hands around a warm cup helps us shift from the stresses and pace of our busy lives to slow down and relax a bit. It also creates the context for meaningful conversation and social bonding. Your personal experience confirms how good this is for your body, mind, and spirit. So, the next time you need to slow down and let go, why not follow the British tradition and put the kettle on to have a cuppa?
“One of my favorite drinks is a dark brew made from herbs, grains, fruits, and nuts known as Teeccino. It’s a completely satisfying warm drink that gives me as much pleasure as coffee.” Christiane Northrup, M.D.
In addition to the wonderful caffeine-free beverages, Caroline shares her seasoned wisdom regularly on her blog: Healthy Tips. https://teeccino.com/blogs/news. Here, you can tune in to a wide range of wellness information, such as: cultivating a resilient biome, sleep hygiene, and the superpowers of herbs and mushrooms. Scroll down to check out Caroline’s musings on timely topics. for instance: the importance of wetlands; real natural flavors; refined fructose and weight gain; and how to keep your new year’s resolutions.
To order Teeccino, go to your local health food store or look on Amazon. Even better, check out the wide selection of offerings / specials and order directly from https://teeccino.com/collections/all
Originally published in The Montecito Journal