CELESTIAL SEASONINGS TOUR SUITS COLORADO VISITORS TO A TEA.

Byline: Susanne Hopkins Daily News Travel Editor

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.

- Henry Ward Beecher on a Celestial Seasonings tea box

As the last ember flickers in the fireplace, the big old bear snoozes in his chair, a contented smile on his face.

Sweet dreams? Perhaps, but it's more likely he's just sipped the last drop of a soothing cup of tea - Sleepytime, maybe.

You don't have to be Jessica Fletcher to figure this out. After all, there's that empty cup and saucer and a fat teapot resting on the table next to his chair. Another telltale clue: We're on a tour of the Celestial Seasonings tea factory, and this small tableau tucked in a corner of the corporate offices is one of our stops.

Pete, our tour guide, does the introductions.

``This is our Sleepytime bear,'' he says with a grin, pointing to the giant stuffed bear in the chair. No introduction is necessary for most of us - the lovable old bruin appears in just such a scene on boxes of Sleepytime, the company's most popular herbal tea in its stable of 57 products.

It's a whimsical moment in a fanciful tour. If you're visiting Denver and beer isn't your brew, but a cuppa is your cup of tea, take a 45-minute jaunt north to Boulder and check out Celestial Seasonings.

Known for its boxes with their brightly colored, flight-of-fancy scenes and philosophical quotes, Celestial Seasonings is the nation's premier producer of herbal teas, posting in excess of $60 million in sales annually. Since 1971, it has combined a host of ingredients - things such as hibiscus flowers, orange blossoms, chamomile, licorice and spearmint - into teas with such monikers as Red Zinger, Bengal Spice and Cranberry Cove.

Situated on Sleepytime Drive, in a residential area of Boulder, Celestial Seasonings is a cheery place that opens its factory doors to more than 25,000 visitors a year.

``(In 1995), we celebrated the 100,000th visitor,'' says Yvonne Lynot, spokeswoman for the tea company, noting that the free tours have been available only since 1991.

The tours not only allow visitors to see the inner workings of a tea factory, they also provide a chance to comment on teas being formulated, Lynot says. ``If we're working on a new tea, we'll bring out an A cup and a B cup and you'll tell us exactly what you think of that product,'' she says, adding that guests can say whether a tea is too strong, too sweet, too spicy, etc. ``We get a feeling for what the public taste is like.''

They aren't testing new teas this day, but we will get a sample of tea at the end of the tour.

We meet in front of the tea factory's herb garden, where Pete tells us how in 1969, at age 19, Mo Siegel and his buddy Wyck Hay tramped the forests and canyons of the Rocky Mountains, plucking wild herbs and blending them into an herb tea that they called Mo's 36 Herb Tea and dispensed to health-food stores in handmade muslin bags.

This was revolutionary, Pete says, because ``you couldn't buy herb teas back then.''

By 1972, Siegel and Hay, along with Hay's brother John, had come up with a blend they called Red Zinger and a company name inspired by the high school nickname of Lucinda Zeising, a friend of Mo's, whose boyfriend had dubbed her ``Celestial Seasonings.'' Their stable of teas grew steadily, and soon Celestial Seasonings was vying for grocery store space with Thomas J. Lipton teas. Kraft Foods bought the company in 1984; the employees bought it back in 1988 for $60 million. It's been a publicly held company since 1993 and now sells not only herb teas, but some black teas, a green tea and even throat lozenges. Of the three founders, only Siegel, chief executive officer, remains with the company.

Pete leads us into the factory (after first handing out hair nets, which everyone except those with hats is required to don; we do so with a fair amount of good-natured grumbling). He points out original artwork for the tea boxes as we move down the hall to the milling department. Today, they're milling hibiscus from Thailand (herbs are now imported from around the world, rather than just gathered in the Rockies). We pause by burlap bags of hibiscus flowers. ``They go into our zinger teas,'' Pete says. ``They're what gives it the red color.''

We get an up-close-and-personal look at machines that put the tea into the tea bags, pack and wrap the boxes (Tension Tamer is the tea of the day), but the highlight of the tour is the tea rooms.

Pete takes us to an artfully painted black roll-up door - the black tea room. Boxes stamped with their point of origin - Kenya, Indonesia, Tanzania, Argentina, China, India - are stacked nearly to the ceiling and the aroma is strong and pungent.

A few steps away, there is a candy-striped, roll-up door - the mint room, home of peppermint and spearmint.

``You can go in and stay as long as you want,'' Pete invites, then adds mischievously, ``Most people don't stay too long.''

We forge ahead - and nearly fall all over each other trying to get back out as the aroma hits us.

``Whew, that just hits you all of a sudden. It makes your eyes water,'' says one woman bolting from the room.

``It's the menthol,'' Pete explains. ``Clears your sinuses.''

And with that and a few more stops to watch packing machines, we exit into the factory's gift emporium (and immediately rip off our hair nets). We help ourselves to some tea (they're serving Nutcracker Suite). It's a sweet way to end a tour that suits most of us to a tea.

On Location

Celestial Seasonings, 4600 Sleepytime Drive, Boulder, offers free tours from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Reservations are not required.

While you're there, stroll down to the company's Celestial Cafe. The food, served cafeteria-style, is tasty and inexpensive, but the real reason to drop by is the artwork. It's like stepping into a fairytale. Inspired by the fanciful pictures that appear on the company's tea boxes, a factory tour guide has used the walls to create a Celestial Seasonings village, complete with the Sleepytime Hotel and the Lemon Zinger Teahouse. And some of those box-top quotes are emblazoned in script on the walls, too.

Information: [phone].

Also worth a visit in Boulder, and just two blocks away from Celestial Seasonings, is the Leanin' Tree Museum of Art. The card company, which specializes in western and wildlife subjects, has a fine collection of nearly 300 western paintings and bronzes shown off on two floors of the corporate offices. Here, you'll see astounding paintings of the Grand Canyon, stirring tributes to pioneers and American Indians and beautiful landscapes, as well as painstaking bronze sculptures. The museum, at 6055 Longbow Drive, is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free and tours are self-guided. Information: [phone].

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: (Color) The Sleepytime Bear snoozes at the Cele stial Seasonings factory.

Susanne Hopkins/Daily News

Box: On Location (See Text)