In 1969, one of Celestial Seasonings founders, Mo Siegel, handpicked wild herbs from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and used them to make our first tea. In the following years, he sold Mo’s 36 and 24 Herb Teas to health food stores, eventually selling them in hand-sewn muslin bags. It was in those early years that we began creating and defining the herbal tea category.
By 1972, two of our flagship blends were introduced: Red Zinger® and Sleepytime®. These innovative blends and their popularity – Sleepytime is the bestselling specialty tea of all time – helped turn our cottage industry into a near-overnight success.
Today, Celestial Seasonings serves more than 1.6 billion cups of tea a year. Our product base expanded to include lines for herbal tea, green tea, black tea, wellness tea and Cold Brew iced tea, and the ingredients, over 100 of them, are sourced from over 35 countries. Though we’ve grown so much since we first started out picking wild herbs in the Rockies, we are still driven by that same entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for making tea that’s good for people and the planet.
Below, you’ll find a timeline of Celestial Seasonings moments.
Milestones
1969
Mo Siegel makes first blends from wild herbs picked by hand in Colorado.
1970
Introduced Mo’s 36 Herb Tea, sold exclusively at a Boulder health food store.
1971
Introduced Mo’s 24 Herb Tea, a perfected blend packaged in hand-sewn muslin bags and sold in health food stores around the country.
1972
Introduced Sleepytime®, the bestselling specialty tea of all time.
Introduced Red Zinger®, the original flavor in the popular Zinger line of herbal teas, which currently includes seven flavors.
1984
Purchased by Kraft, Inc.
1989
Company bought back from Kraft by Celestial Seasonings management and Vestar Capital Partners in a leveraged buyout.
1995
Introduced Green Tea line, the first green tea to be launched in mainstream stores across the U.S.
2000
Introduced Chai Tea line, which currently features 4 flavors.
Merged with The Hain Food Group to become The Hain Celestial Group.
2003
Introduced Cool Brew Iced Tea line, which currently includes four flavors.
Introduced Rooibos Tea line, which currently features three red tea (or Rooibos) flavors.
2005
Free tea tour, located at the Boulder headquarters, reaches one million visitor mark. The popular tour currently receives more than 100,000 visitors annually and was named one of the top 10 free travel destinations in America by USA Weekend magazine in June 2009.
2008
Introduced two new Green Teas benefiting National Breast Cancer Foundation.
2009
Introduced Sleepytime Vanilla, the first new flavor addition to the Sleepytime product family in more than 20 years.
Introduced new Green Tea line infused with white tea to solve the variety’s bitterness conundrum. The line features 9 varieties.
2010
Introduced Sleepytime Decaf Lemon Jasmine Green Tea, the first Sleepytime Green Tea segment extension.
Expansion of our Wellness Tea Line, by introducing LaxaTea and Sleepytime Sinus Soother
2012
Introduced Jammin’ Lemon Ginger Herbal Tea and 2 new Sleepytime Herbal line extensions – Sleepytime Kids and Sleepytime Peach. Now, 10 Sleepytime teas are sold across 3 major tea segments (herbal, green and wellness).
2013
Introduced Sleepytime Decaf Blackberry Pomegranate Green Tea.
Launched 5 new Organic and Fair Trade Estate Teas exclusively at Whole Foods.
Introduced Cool Brew Half and Half.
2 Kombuchas made exclusively for Sprouts (Immunity Concord Grape and Hydration Coconut Lime).