I’m not altogether a newcomer to the “Gourmet” Bar Soap market, having bought simular soaps before, although doing so entirely because some brilliant marketer had encased dice within the lavender scented block. While I’ve thought about buying tea based soaps before, this will be the first I’ve ever actually gotten round to using.

The bar is a Light Mocha studded here and there with bits of oat, It smelled very strongly of home brewed Masala Chai. I tested it on a very dirty person, namely me after a day of driving, followed by a day of picking stuff up from a furniture store and assembling said things, then more assembling today, all without access to a shower at my friends new home, followed by a drive home.

The Glycerine based bar did the trick rather well, the soap itself lubricating assorted grimes, and the oat texturing providing a sort of mild loofah scrubbing action. While the oats did scrape a bit, I think all but the most sensitive folks won’t find it unpleasant. There was a sort of tingling sensation for a short while after showering, but it didn’t last long and really wasn’t unpleasant either, I personally experienced a burning sensation, but that has far more to do with the Sunburn I had, and absolutely nothing to do with the soap.

While maybe a bit too indulgent to be someones daily bar, its definitely something interesting to supply a well used guest room, a bead and breakfast suite, or just kept on hand for those mornings when you could use a spicy caffeinated boost (caffeine can be absorbed through the skin). If you happen to have one of the handful of skin conditions where oatmeal based soaps are recommended you might as well splurge, or if your just “that” crazy about chai. Its definitely something I would buy again, and has left me very excited for the prospects of their actual chai blend, of which I was also sent a review sample, and which I will be reviewing within the next day.

OMG! I am so excited to have the opportunity to review these tea infused chocolate bars! I am a true-blue chocoholic and a little bit of a chocolate snob. You will pretty much never find me in a gas station buying a plain old candy bar as I often find their chocolate to be too waxy tasting for me. Update: I became very ill with a stomach virus shortly after consuming these chocolate bars when reviewing them. I am certain it was a stomach virus and not some type of food poisoning from the chocolate bars. However, it took me awhile to get a taste for them again so that I could finish my review. My apologies to the The Tea Room for the delay in finalizing the review.

I began my sampling of the bars with the Green Earl Grey Dark Chocolate Bar. This bar is a 3 time award winner and The Tea Room lists the ingredients in it as unsweetened organic chocolate, organic cane sugar, organic cacao fat, organic green tea, organic bergamot oil. Soy Lecithin added as emulsifier. This bar is undeniably an Earl Grey and dark chocolate fusion. One thing that I enjoyed about this bar is that the Earl Grey is not subtle and I think that the citrusy bergamot dominates the overall the flavor of the bar. I was not able to really taste the green tea in this and if you had told me this was made with an Earl Grey black tea, I would not have argued with you. An initial concern that I had about all of the bars were that they would mostly taste like chocolate with a hint of the tea infusion, but that concern was immediately squelched after just a couple of bites of this bar. The dark chocolate used here is rich, decadent and not at waxy. This is a quality chocolate so if you are like me and hate the chocolate offered in gas stations and vending machines, you can purchase these knowing that is not the case. While I enjoyed this bar, I shared it with a friend, who is not very experienced with Earl Grey, and she did not care for it. She found it to be a little spicy and bitter. Thus, I might not choose this bar out of the extensive collection of tea-infused chocolate bars that The Tea Room offers for someone whom I am not certain if they like Earl Grey.

The next bar that I sampled was the Jasmine Milk Chocolate bar. If you were to offer me a choice of a milk chocolate bar or a dark chocolate bar, I would choose the dark chocolate almost every time. However, this bar actually turned out to be my favorite of the three, which completely surprised me. The Tea Room lists the ingredients of this as unsweetened organic chocolate, organic cane sugar, organic cacao fat, organic dry whole milk, organic jasmine green tea. organic tangerine essence, Soy Lecithin added as emulsifier. Initially, I wasn’t too sure about the combination of jasmine and milk chocolate. However, the jasmine in this is overshadowed by the tangerine essence. This is more of a tangerine and milk chocolate fusion with a hint of jasmine. I was surprised by that as jasmine is usually such a strong flavor and I was expecting it to take centerstage, but I actually think that this is quite delicious. The quality of the chocolate used in this is outstanding and it pretty much melted in my mouth. There was no waxiness to speak of and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this bar. This was also the favorite of my friend and I practically had to pry the remainder of my sample, which was slated to be enjoyed by me when finalizing the review, out of her greedy little paws. If I were rating these individually, this one would probably get a 10.

The final bar sampled is the Raspberry Rooibos Dark Chocolate Bar. I had initially expected that this one would be my overall favorite of the bunch—and it is good. The Tea Room lists the ingredients of this one as unsweetened organic chocolate, organic cane sugar, organic cacao fat, organic red raspberry rooibos tea. Soy Lecithin added as emulsifier. Once again, the dark chocolate used in this is rich and decadent—enough so that by the time I got to this bar, I was craving a glass of milk! I found the marriage of the rooibos with dark chocolate to be a really good pairing. The raspberry flavor is delicious and spot on. The raspberry flavor is not as dominating as the tangerine and Earl Grey flavors were in the previous bars. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I found the raspberry to be elusive, but I just found the flavor profile to err more on the side of the dark chocolate and rooibos with a nice raspberry backdrop. My friend who sampled these with me agreed that the raspberry was a little subtle.

Overall, I found these bars to be VERY nicely done. I have tried a number of tea infused chocolates and these are definitely amongst the better ones. In all, The Tea Room offers 8 of these Tea Infusions Chocolate Bars and there is not one that I don’t want to try (they even have a white chocolate one)! Further, as someone who is always watching my waistline, I found that the calorie content in these wasn’t too terrible. A serving size is half of a bar and that will cost you 140 calories that are totally worth it. Further, these are rich enough that it would be easy to be relatively satisfied with a quarter of a bar at one sitting. The Tea Room also has a section of wine and chocolate pairings for those of us that might be interested in enjoying these with a couple splashes of wine Thumbs up!

The two that I received were filled with lavender and tie guan yin oolong teas. Both of them smelled amazing. Whether or not these pillows will work for you depends on your firmness preference. They are very firm, reminiscent of the trendy buckwheat pillows from a few years back. I tried them out on a long road trip as well as just lounging around at home and I really liked them. They made a great air freshener for the car too! The packaging for these pillows was absolutely beautiful. If you are looking to give a unique gift for a tea lover, they certainly fit the bill.

The first is a dark chocolate infused with raspberry rooibos. This bar is my least favourite, though that isn’t saying too much since it is still quite good. I prefer my dark chocolate darker, but overall it is an excellent bar of deliciousness. The raspberry is fantastic and realistic. The problem with raspberry flavoured things is that they often come across as fake and gross, but this is excellently done. While the chocolate doesn’t come across as distinctly rooibos, you can tell there’s more than just the fruit added. The hint of rooibos flavour is vague, but not unwelcome.

The second chocolate bar is their milk chocolate infused with jasmine and tangerine. The website claims it is just a hint of tangerine, but I found it to be the strongest flavour overall. Normally I don’t prefer milk chocolate, but this bar is excellent and bold. The tangerine is fantastic, the chocolate smooth, and the jasmine, while less strong than I would have preferred, blends perfectly with the other flavours. My husband said this one was his personal favourite of all the flavours we tried.

The third and final bar is the dark chocolate bar infused with green earl gray tea. It is my personal favourite of the three. Rich and distinctly earl grey. Impressively, it even tastes specifically like it is infused with a green earl grey tea rather than black tea or just a generic bergamot.

All three bars are as smooth as silk and clearly well made. When I put together a small sample cart, the website told me that ground shipping to Canada would cost me $70, so either something is amiss there, or I would just ship it to my parents then have them send it up this way. U.S. shipping costs seem very reasonable, so that is a very doable option if needed. I would definitely buy these if I didn’t have to ship them and ohmygoodness. Their website says they’re going to be available soon at all London Drug locations in Western Canada. I live in Western Canada. *squeals of delight* Um, yes, onwards. I will definitely be buying these regularly once available at my local London Drugs, and if I had to ship them, I’d still probably get a box or so around Christmas for my, uh, husband. If you enjoy chocolate at all and are lucky enough to have any of this company’s chocolates at one of your local stores (a list of vendors is available on their website) please do yourself a favour and pick some up.

Cheery, brightly patterned packaging and a whimsical logo catch the eye immediately and once you get a glance at some of the infusions in the chocolates, you’ll surely want to explore what’s underneath the wrapper. My own samples included the following: a dark chocolate (58%) raspberry rooibos, a milk chocolate (38%) jasmine, and a dark chocolate (58%) green earl grey. If only the question “where to begin” murmured aloud were such a happy conundrum all the time!! I opted to sample the chocolates in stages so as not to mix the flavors up too much.

I began with the raspberry rooibos. This is a dark chocolate bar with a 58% cacao content (I am a dark chocolate lover basically exclusively and 55% is my usual favorite so this was easy to look forward to). True to the company’s description of this bar being “undeniably raspberry,” the fragrance of the berries wafted out in wonderfully chocolatey company. The super smoothly poured, very dark chocolate had a lovely sheen to it – quite appealing to the eye. The scent of the raspberry was bright and rich. I think I could honestly describe this as being a raspberry and chocolate lovers dream in bar form. How lovely it would be served with a glass of framboise after a special dinner. The chocolate is very smooth in the mouth and really bursts with a rich berry flavor that fully coats the mouth and happily has no strange or artificial tasting aftertastes. It’s quite delicious. The dark chocolate is very smooth overall.

My next sampling was of the other Dark Chocolate offering: Green Earl Grey. This was the bar that my husband was most looking forward to sampling so he got a large piece as well (which he loved and found to be his favorite of the three). Initially, this bar tasted a little bitter to me and I had trouble distinguishing the bergamot in the bar. It had been in a cold area so I tried it again when it was in a warmer room in the house. What a difference! Whereas before the flavors were a little muddled and hard to perceive, they all popped when I tried the bar a second time. The dark chocolate is perfectly matched to the spicy and somewhat citrusy notes of the bergamot. The green notes of the tea I think are discernible in a pleasantly balanced marriage with the dark chocolate, a tangy sort of bitterness that engages the senses as it zips along the sides of the tongue and dances with the dark spicy citrus of the bergamot. This is a fine match up. It’s not hard to ascertain why this was a two time award winner – winner of the 2009 ShapeYou.com Top Gear of the Year Award as well as the SOFI silver award. This is an absolutely excellent bar, dark and engaging, really sophisticated and a treat to taste. The pair up seems darned near perfect and I am so glad I came back for a second tasting of this bar. And I’m so glad that we ate only a tiny portion of this chocolate bar at the colder temperature. It’s amazing what a difference of only a few degrees can make in terms of taste…but then again, as a tea lover, I should know that!

I saved the Jasmine Milk Chocolate with Tangerine Orange for last. Generally I’m not a milk chocolate fan. Milks tend to coat my tongue too thickly for me to enjoy them and are generally a little too sweet for my tastes as well. I also thought initially that the idea of a Chinese Jasmine tea combined with anything sweet and milky sounded…just odd. Could anyone have been more wrong? I think this chocolate bar was my favorite and in fact is the best milk chocolate I’ve ever had! I’m actually emailing my local co-op and requesting that they see if they can carry these bars in the store based on the crazy delicious impression this one left me with. The second your mouth closes around a tiny piece of this chocolate your senses themselves are infused (pun intended) with a wonderfully luxurious, almost sleepily transporting and complete jasmine, as though you were outside on a patio one perfect Florida night breathing deeply of jasmine growing all around the edges of the stonework and filling the night air with scent. The milk chocolate, instead of seeming a little strange with the floral notes, is perfect. Where the jasmine is a little exotic and rich and permeating, the milk chocolate carries the theme with a rich creaminess of its own. Delightful! An additional interesting ingredient to this bar is tangerine sourced right from Napa. It steps in toward the rear of the tasting and I think the citrus somehow leaves a clean taste in the mouth and simultaneously makes a wonderful bolster to the jasmine. The flavors in this bar work exquisitely together. This bar gets a solid ten in my book, and I think that’s really high praise (and it even confuses me a little) since I’m really not much a fan of milk chocolate. I would really recommend you try this bar – even if you aren’t partial to milk chocolate and even if you aren’t partial to jasmine. If you’re a lover or even a liker of either, of course, all bets are off and you should just try it as soon as possible!!

Overall, these were really a treat to try. Imaginative and even a little whimsical both in the cheery packaging and the flavor combinations, they were all three a really enjoyable, delectable dessert to sample. What fun it would be to order both the teas and the chocolates and have a tea and chocolate tasting party with some good friends. I think anyone would enjoy these bars. They are obviously crafted with great care, interest, and with a well balanced hand. The chocolates all have a beautiful, clear gloss to them, and the tastes are just wonderfully well done. The rich aromas make the experience very fine, all the way around. I will definitely be making an order from The Tea Room. There are five other infusions to try, after all!

These chocolate bars are offered as individuals or can be purchased in gift sets. There are also truffles and other individual chocolates available at the company website, thetearoom.biz.

The book is an attractive hardcover, very suitable for gift giving. The front cover is embossed with the logo of the tea company co-founded by Mr. Podreka, SerendipiTea. My initial thoughts while reading were that this book would make a wonderful read for all lovers of tea, regardless of knowledge levels. The beginner will find much of interest and a good overview set out in very readable and understandable form. The author briefly introduces himself (really a very nice thing in a book…a chance to get to know the author a bit and immediately feel on more intimate terms), and then launches into a general history of tea, its place in the history of trade and commerce as well as a bit of information on the spread of tea drinking and cultivation as well as its production. The book is peppered throughout with page insets offering personal opinions, anecdotes, and more specific information about various teas, estates, etc. A helpful chapter glances on aspects ranging from harvest to how teas are graded and packed. From there, it’s a short introduction to the major types of tea; white, green, oolong, pu’ehr, black, pouchong and scented teas. The amount of information provided is enough to ground the reader with the basics without a lot of confusing extras to cloud the liquor, so to speak. Another thing I appreciated about the book is that Mr. Podreka took the time to provide information not only about the types of teas produced in different countries and regions and altitudes, but also discusses various estates. He mentions in his discussion of black teas which are most supportive of cream or milk as additions (and why) as well, something I thought was helpful and interesting, even though I don’t tend to drink teas with milk.

Readers with an interest in travel and the customs of faraway places will also enjoy the author’s notes on tea customs in foreign lands. An Australian with roots in Croatia, he lived in many places before coming to the the United States and all of the anecdotes he passes along are intriguing, despite their brevity. I particularly enjoyed the paragraphs on Outback Australian tea customs; curious and amusing to my North American ears are the terms “Jackaroo” and “Swaggies” and the tea making practice of “swinging the billy.” Swinging the Billy is certainly a method of separating the leaves from the liquor that I’ve never tried, but I think any reader would find it a great bit of reading about customs unknown. Readers will also enjoy the varied recipes given with each foray into the world’s tea habits. Customs and recipes for tea go-withs (many of which sound delicious and would be easy to prepare with average kitchen ingredients) are included from all sorts of places, from the US, England, Australia, France, Arabia and India to China, Japan and Russia.

This book made for an excellent read. Informative and quite often intriguing, it’s a brief introduction to a fascinating and wide world connected to the wonderful tea plant. Anyone even remotely interested in tea would enjoy it quite a bit and those passionate about tea will find it a helpful companion as well as a little something to whet one’s appetite for more in depth reading. A useful glossary and suggestions for further reading are included at the rear.

I should mention that this little book also impressed me very deeply in that the author, Mr. Tomislav Podreka, passed away several years ago in 2004. He was just 39 years of age. His love and knowledge of the leaf is evident and his enthusiasm for his work in the tea business is undeniable. I’m very sorry to hear of SerendipiTea’s and the tea world’s loss, but am so very delighted that his lovely book is still available for an enjoyable read for all of us out there who love the leaf as well. The company he co-founded, SerendipiTea, is still in business and their website is well worth perusing. While you’re there, consider picking up a copy of this most enjoyable book for yourself or someone you know!

From the start, I knew this was a book unlike most others. To begin, you are quickly encouraged to ignore the traditional linear nature of books and read this in whatever order you feel motivated to, a great piece of advice to make this book flow with your current tea mood. And this is certainly a book for tea moods. I felt naked whenever I tried to pick up this paperback without a cuppa in my hand.

I don’t want to go too in-depth on the structure of the book because you can learn all about that from a number of other places, including the Amazon.com product description, which is rather thorough. This book is full of wisdom, stories, and knowledge about nearly every aspect of tea. I really appreciate that this spans seven different areas of the world and a broad variety of tea professionals – growers, experts, sellers, tasters, and more. Even if one chapter bores you, you’re sure to find something fascinating later on, as long as you find any aspect of tea writing interesting. Ultimately, I feel this book is all about personal experiences, whether it is those of the people interviewed and those you have while reading each page.

I feel as though I learned something with every chapter, and reading this helped me grow both as a tea lover and as a person. This is the sort of book I will read segments of for years to come whenever the mood strikes me. I highly recommend this for anyone who wants to learn, be entertained, or take a break from life’s hassles to relax for a bit, and it has certainly motivated me to seek out The Meaning of Tea movie.

As a single person who is the only person in my house that drinks tea, I seldom make a pot of tea—even though I have teapot that is cute as can be. The problem is that I have so much tea that I rarely drink the same tea blend twice in a row unless it is oolong and my teapot is really meant to serve like 3-4 cups of tea. Yes, I know that I don’t actually have to make 3-4 cups of tea and could adjust accordingly, but lets just say that it mostly a decorative teapot and leave it at that. OK, I don’t use it because I am addicted to my regular tea maker. Regardless of all that, I am grateful to receive this set from JING to try out. The set consists of a clear glass teapot with cup and saucer.

The teapot: This is a cute little teapot that is deceptively larger than it looks. When I first opened the set, I was doubtful that it would even fill the cup completely, but it does. This makes about 10 oz of tea, which is a seemingly odd amount. The teapot is actually fairly ingenious. It has a wire spring strainer that attaches through the tea spout. I love this because I hate the delicateness of glass and ceramic infusers that tend to take a beating and aren’t really very durable. The one drawback to this wire strainer is that this will not be able to strain smaller particles like those found in rooibos and even broken black leaves and the like. When preparing black tea, an escapee tea leaf will occasionally make it into your cup. The clear glass design allows you to see the tea leaves do their dance and expand nicely. There is also a small hole in the lid that makes cleaning easy. You simply fill with water turn upside down and allow to drain. Ideally, the tea leaves will collect inside the walled tea lid and allow for easy disposal. JING points out on their website that this pot would be ideal for gong-fu style preparation and I agree.

The teacup and saucer: The cup is concave rather than a cup with straight up walls. It is kind of modern and cute. The saucer is made of a nice, durable thick glass and survived a drop onto the kitchen floor. My one concern with the cup and saucer was that they wouldn’t resist the heat well and it might be impossible to hold onto the cup and drink a hot cup without burning my fingers, but so long as you hold onto the handles and avoid touching the cup/pot itself with the hotter liquids it is not a problem.

JING sells this both as a set and separately. However, there is a bit of a pricebreak if you buy the set rather than individually. JING makes reference to this as being good for travel and though the glass seems durable, I am not too sure that I would travel with this for the simple fact that it is made of glass. Overall, I found the set to be chic, practical and the teapot somewhat ingenious. I think this is a great set and I appreciate JING for sending it. If this sounds like something that would appeal to you, then I would strongly urge you to add it to your cart when shopping with JING.

The teacup is perfectly matched to the volume of the teapot, so that the entire infusion can be poured at once and no water remains in with the leaves. I really admired the simplicity of this teacup and saucer. The biggest asset is the transparency of the glass allowing you to see the color of the brewed liquid. The teacup is short and fairly wide which allows one to really catch the aroma of the brewed liquid. These factors really enhance the tea drinking experience and elevate it to a multi-sensory experience. I noticed that the handle of the teacup was not “ergonomically designed” to match my hands, but this is a silly side point and one that will vary with the size and shape of each person’s hands.

In all, I am really enjoying this tea set and would definitely recommend it to others. This would make an ideal gift for the tea lover in your life. Jing describes this teaware as “perfect for home, work or on your travels”. Now common sense hasn’t always been my strong suit, but it seems to me that this set obviously wouldn’t travel well, since the items are made of glass. However, his teaware is dishwasher and microwave safe so it’s not so delicate as to be impractical.

All of the bears contain the same following ingredients: organic sugar, kosher gelatin, citric acid, lactic acid, fractionated coconut oil, and beeswax. I suspect you can’t really make a gummy bear without all that stuff. They each in turn introduce some other fine ingredients to individualize their flavors.

The Acai Blueberry are my personal favorite of the three. However, this is the one flavor that has nothing to do with tea. There are no tea ingredients present, nor do they taste like tea. They are, however, delicious and sweet – just like a gummy bear should be. The blueberry flavoring comes from “natural flavors” and blueberry “powder”. Acai powder is also a key ingredient, which may or may not have some positive benefits like antioxidants, fiber, improved digestion, sexual performance, and other fun things that are hotly debated. regardless, taste-wise, these are some yummy gummies.

The Pomegranate White Tea bears contain black carrot juice concentrate (typically utilized to achieve a red color as opposed to black carrot flavor) and, of course, white tea. The pomegranate flavoring must come from the ever-vague “natural flavor” ingredient, which is listed on each of the gummies. Taste-wise, I’m not the biggest fan of the bitter pomegranate, so these didn’t appeal to me much as they retain some true, potent pomegranate flavor (all but decimating any delicious white tea flavor).

The Peach Green Tea bears are interesting in that instead of utilizing organic corn syrup (as the other two flavors do), this one has organic rice syrup instead. I don’t claim to know any benefits of rice syrup over corn syrup (or, for all I know, maybe it’s even worse for you), but I thought it interesting. Tea-wise, these bears contain green tea powder (presumably matcha?), and the peach flavor comes from “natural flavor” — these are interesting, and pretty tasty, but no match for the delicious Acai Blueberry bears.

Blueberry Bear wins!!

Whether or not these are better than other gummy bears, I can’t really say. The flavors are unique, to be sure. They *seem* a tiny bit healthier than your average bear, but I doubt that’s a concern for most when quaffing a few gummies. They also seem softer than the usual gummies — natural ingredients are most likely an effect on the texture, I’m guessing.

These flavors are available individually from Tavalon, or as a 3-flavor sampler as reviewed here. As an aside, the French word “ménage” translates to “household”. I suppose that means the 3-flavor pack is a household of gummies. These bears ain’t kinky, folks. They are sweet. Get your mind outta the gutter.