Sesa Says
Tips, Tricks & Tales from the SESA Beverage Lab
Food Insecurity is Real & Inequitable Millions of people across our nation are experiencing hunger and food insecurity for the first time. Millions are facing evictions and homelessness, and many already live on our streets and sidewalks. This pandemic has accelerated the glaring inequities and hypocrisies in our food system. Here are some simple statistics to provide some insight to the dynamics in our community. Before the pandemic hit Texas, 10% of households in our state, and 20% of households with children, were food insecure. Since March, almost 1 in 4 Texas households, and almost 1 in 3 households with children, have faced food insecurity. In our Austin community, we are fortunate enough to have numerous local nonprofits who are working to help ensure our friends, family members and neighbors have safe, nutritious and nourishing food during this trying time and they need your help to continue this critical work. We ask you to join us in making a simple pledge, as a business, nonprofit or as an individual community member. If you are able to donate even just a few dollars here's a simple way to give with a lasting impact. Through a partnership project led by Good Work Austin local high road restaurants are providing meals to seniors in our community who face barriers to equitable access to healthy food options. Learn more and Donate if you are able - Good Work Austin and Safe Table project. Every amount makes an impact for these amazing organizations fighting hunger in Austin and Central Texas. You can also help by sharing their story and posting about them online using these hashtags: #GivingTuesday #FeedingTuesday Safe Environments We believe that everyone deserves to have access to safe living and working environments. If you or someone you know may benefit from some counseling and support services please reach out and share this link to the Safe Alliance this winter. Reaching out for support is healthy and for everyone. Support Local Businesses that create Safe Workspaces Buying from community minded local businesses directly contributes to improving equity. Together with Good Work Austin we are proud to be a part of a community of businesses that are determined to improve the health of our teams, work spaces, and community. By choosing to make your purchase with a Good Work Austin and High Road Restaurant member you are directly impacting how we each shift to a more collective good.
Stay Well. Stay Safe. Spread Good.
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There’s no doubt that this country has much to offer and that there are countless ways to be thankful no matter how rough life is or has been especially this year. Being aware of what we have becomes more meaningful when we realize the inequities that are so ingrained. There’s still so much more we have to learn and improve so that more people can have more to be thankful for daily. We have a great deal of wrong to understand and rebuild and to start we invite you to take a moment to reflect and consider how you think about Thanksgiving.
Managing Stress
Stress is a part of life. We all invariably experience it from time to time. And at times especially this year it may be an uncomfortable ongoing part of life. To help us manage the stresses that we face we have compiled a list of our favorite, tested and true simple ways to combat stress in this two-part blog post.
The first part of our blog which we shared earlier this year as we shifted into the summer focused on reminders of regular habits to adjust to the new normal that we were all suddenly needing to adapt. All of those tips are still vital to our being well and managing stress. Here in part two we examine the second set of 8 tips for maintaining a healthy balance and moving through stress with more grace and ease. Staying well through transitions August is a time of shifts and transitions for many people. As the preparation for the new school year cycle start and the summer season begins to turn into fall - schedules and rhythms change along with the weather, landscapes and even our diets. Even in Texas where it may not seem like fall weather is approaching these changes are upon us. Parents and families for sure are aware and another part of our community also is very well aware - our fellow farmers. Simply ask any farmer and they for sure know it is the close of summer which they have already been preparing for weeks now. Speaking of changes, if anything has been constant this year - it is change. Although we are slowing learning how to sustain and grow there is still so much more to manage each new week to stay well. With all the variables to which we are each individually adapting we must also pay attention to our physical and mental well being. At Sesa we continue to stay determined to continue to share our teas, chai, coffee and botanicals to keep us going and stay in balance and we plan to do more! Health + wellness are at the core of our mission Health and well being is the foundation for Sesa. From the meaning of Sesa which represents balance in Sanskrit, to our mission to support drinking with purpose and promote intentional living and with our products designed to help you be balanced. Our ultimate goal is to help cultivate individual and community wellness. This spring and summer opened our eyes and minds to even more knowledge and awareness about our food economy and systems - locally and globally. Beyond our previous and ongoing commitment to our long term partner growers, customers and wholesale partners we are now even more committed to advocating and supporting sustainable healthy living on a community level as well.
We have been learning about more ways we can contribute while we too have been working through how to sustain and keep going this year and we are starting with small steps. Now in addition to our beverage products we have been presented an opportunity to venture into more ways to support the health of our community and we are excited to add more to our offerings to make the transition into the fall this year. We invite you to continue reading to learn about how to purchase within your budget, gift some wellness or make a donation. Ethical Business + Equality
Here at Sesa Pure, we have always valued diversity and social justice, and we will only continue to maintain business practices that reflect those values. Within the context of recent events, we want to take a moment to highlight how and why we believe it is important to imbue these principles into practices within our business model. We will stay true to our roots by continuing to uphold our values and by fighting for social justice causes, especially within the food and beverage industry, so that we may continue the work of creating a just and equitable world.
We have and will continue to stand by our values through multiple avenues. One of the ways we have always engaged with our community so as to improve outcomes has been through partnerships with local nonprofits. From the inception of our company, we have always engaged in and supported community giving. Two of the organizations we proudly support are Urban Roots and Good Work Austin. Another way we help make the world a more equitable place is through our conscientious sourcing. All of our ingredients are sourced from farms that take the utmost care of not only their plants but also the workers tending those plants. We believe every human that engages with our product shall be taken care of and treated with dignity and respect. Read on to find out more about the two organizations we are currently supporting, our commitment to continuing and to strengthening our ethical business practices, and how your continued support can help us make a greater impact. Healing Tisanes
Tea has historically been used in myriad ways to benefit health. While the tea plant is loaded with antioxidants, some of the most healing “teas” don’t contain tea at all! Often, these “herbal teas” or tisanes are comprised of a variety of dried herbs and spices steeped and drunk just like a cup of traditional tea.
Herbal teas have long been used to help fight the symptoms of cold and flu, and since it is flu season, we thought there wasn’t a better time to dive into some options if you’ve got the winter crud. Infuse Chai in your Cheesecake
We love a good cheesecake here at SESA PURE. I mean, what's not to love about silky cream cheese blended with sugar and eggs to create a moist and decadent dessert? Seeing as it is THE season for all things chai, we thought there'd be no better way to celebrate both warming Masala Chai and our favorite dessert than to combine them! After a couple of test runs, we landed on this recipe to yield a perfectly spicy, creamy delight sure to warm the spirit and enliven the soul.
We start by simmering the heavy cream in our loose Masala Chai blend, then straining it and adding it to our batter to achieve a perfect chai color and to truly infuse the cheesecake with all the decadence of a traditional Masala Chai. We chose to use a Masala Chai blend which includes black tea leaves, thus imparting the cheesecake with a trace amount of caffeine. If you want a totally caffeine-free version, try out our Chai Spice blend to infuse all the flavor without the tea leaves! Vegan + Delicious Chai Shake
There's no doubt about it, fall is Chai season! To start off October strong, we decided to take our spicy Masala Chai to the next level and make a vegan, superfood-powered shake using Chai as a base. And let us tell you, it was seriously delicious.
We included superfoods such as MCT Oil, Maca Root Powder, and Cinnamon in addition to all the healthy spices already in our Masala Chai blend to really up-level this smoothie. If you want to turbocharge your day without coffee, then this is the shake for you to try. Matcha: An Introduction
Matcha is a super-fine powder made from green tea leaves. The tea leaves are picked right at their peak, dried, and stone-ground into a fine powder to be mixed with water, used ceremonially, or even in baking. Matcha has been used ceremonially in Japan for centuries, and only recently has reached peak popularity all over the world for it's delicious flavor, myriad applications, and amazing health benefits.
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