Fred Harvey Desert Tea: From Harvey Houses to Harvey Girls, there's a lot of history in this spicy drink!

Fred Harvey Trading Co, desert tea is a blend of tea, spices and fruit bits mixed with a long history of Harvey hospitality 

Fred Harvey Trading Company Desert Tea, with all its fruit flavors, tangy spices and a bit of sugar, could really be called a dessert tea, as it's a sweet treat served hot or cold.

But, what is the Fred Harvey Trading Company and where can one buy more of its tea?

Well, after sampling my first cup last week, I dug deeper into the Fred Harvey name and its history dates back to the latter part of the eighteenth century. There was an actual Fred Harvey, who immigrated from England at the age of seventeen, and began a career as a freight agent with the southwest railroads. A keen entrepreneur, he saw the opportunity to provide travelers with a high quality dining experience along train stops.

This idea burgeoned into partnerships with the railroads to build several hotels, restaurants and, eventually, passenger-car catering.

The Harvey Houses were known for delicious food served in ample portions by waitresses in long, black dresses covered with starched white aprons. These young ladies inspired both the book, "The Harvey Girls" and the 1946 musical of the same name starring Judy Garland (queue up the band:  "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe"!)

Sipping Desert Tea today, it has connections to the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe!

The Harvey heritage continued adapting through the mid-twentieth century, setting up restaurants in the  Illinois Tollway "Oases", a new concept of dining establishments built over the state's interstate highways of the 1950's.

Eventually, the company was sold in 1968 to the Amfac corporation in Hawaii, changed its name to Xenterra Parks and Resorts in 2002 and bought the Grand Canyon Railway and its properties in 2006.

To borrow from another famous Harvey, "here's the rest of the story. . ."

Last week, I was introduced to this powdered tea drink by my daughter, Rachel and her fiancé, Sean. It was a birthday present  - a tea treasure  they found on their trip to Utah in early March.

Bryce Canon (photo courtesy Rachel Gulley)

An amazing coincidence found both of them attending business conferences in Sault Lake City in the same week. They are great national park enthusiasts (in fact Sean proposed to Rachel last June while they were hiking in Sequoia!) and they were anxious to combine a bit of business with pleasure by visiting a few more parks while in Utah.

Zion National Park -gift shop not shown (photo courtesy Rachel Gulley)

They made it to  both Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park, and the latter is where they found the desert tea at the park's gift shop. (As we know, a visit to any great landmark is not complete without a stop at the souvenir store.)

After I brewed myself a cup,  I found I enjoyed not only the taste, but the sweet and spicy aroma that stirred up from the cup.  And, I wanted to learn where I could get more.

And, that's where I found that Fred Harvey products are sold at many of the national parks in the west however,  currently, no on-line shopping is available. But, should you want to try it, check back at the Xanterra Fred Harvey Trading Company on-line shopping page and try a little desert tea for dessert.

Enjoying desert tea in my Michigan backyard