Warm Cups for Cold Days: Keats & Co Tea, A Respite

Long winters can leave many of us worn out and on the ropes, so let’s get energized and back in the game with a caffeine infusion from Keats & Co. | By Malikai Smith

Dear reader,

Welcome to my inaugural entry with Good Store. Allow me a quick introduction, and then we´ll get right into this: My name is Malikai, and I'm 30 years old. I live in West Hartford Connecticut with my wife, our orange tabby, and our sweet little shih tzu/malteze/Tasmanian devil terror… And I come to you now with a confession. I know it´s early in our relationship for soul-bearing and penance-searching, but I need to come clean. 

The scene of the crime: a perfect autumnal evening. October 2025. My wife and I walk down Farmington Avenue, admiring the red, stubborn leaves that remain clinging to the sugar maples dotting the street. As we take in the fleeting beauty of the season, I commit my crime. I look at my wife, and I say it. 

“You know, I hope we get a good amount of snow this year. It´s always so pretty when the houses and buildings are covered in snow.” 

Now here I am, sitting at the start of a snowy, bone-chilling February, after a bone-chilling January that followed a bone-chilling December, wondering why I just had to open my big mouth. The hubris of man. Another winter where I'm counting down the minutes until Daylight Savings and the days until spring.

So let's talk about coping methods I’ve developed over these last 30 years. 

Get out in the sunshine whenever you can. Keep your body in motion. Dive into your hobbies. Have a mug of something warm. Hello, Keats & Co! My wife and I just got back from a trip out West, and found a care package from Good Store waiting at our doorstep when we arrived. Do I need to tell you how quickly we reached for the Eversong Chai that waited inside? It´s 6 degrees out, for Pete’s sake. We fired up the kettle faster than you can say ¨deliver me from this arctic perdition”. The aroma that filled the house was an intoxicant. The rich flavor of chai, the smooth texture of the latte… Come on. 

Keats & Co. loose-leaf teas exemplify the "Good" in Good Store. First, let’s kick the tires real quick: the product is yummy. The packaging is pretty. But anyone can make tasty tea in an appealing package. Let’s pop the hood and see what makes this different. Keats & Co tea is ethically sourced and sustainably farmed by fair labor, and all the profits are given to charity. Now that’s a nice-looking engine. 

All the money is going to further tuberculosis treatment in Lesotho, and no one I know is against making it easier for people to breathe. The farming is sustainable. The labor involved is practiced fairly. They have as many teas as months in a year. They’ve got coffee. Geez Louise, that’s what I call range! That’s a darn good mug of something warm that will get you through a winter day. It’ll make ya feel good about it, too. But enough of me for the moment. Keats said it better, anyway:

“O thou whose face hath felt the winter's wind,

Whose eye has seen the snow clouds hung in mist,

And the black-elm tops 'mong the freezing stars,

To thee the spring will be a harvest time.”

Until the spring harvest. But who’s counting, anyway? I am. Keats was. If you are too, then take my word for it. Throw the kettle on. Fire the chai up. Join Good Store in the good fight. It's a good way to invite a little more sunshine into these cold, short winter days.