If dipping a tea bag and adding some honey is just too much work for you, Zen Bear Honey Tea cuts out one of those arduous steps.

Seriously, if you have a tea lover on your holiday gift list, a jar of this tea, made in Bath, would make a great stocking stuffer. It’s basically Maine honey with the tea and various herbs blended right in. You put a teaspoonful into a cup of hot water, and voila! — you have hot tea with honey. It’s a clever and convenient idea, especially if you keep a jar of Zen Bear at your desk where you can dip into it whenever the mood strikes you.

There are six varieties. I tried the Qi Chai, which contains wildflower honey, black tea, cinnamon sticks, cardamom, ginger, cloves and black pepper. Most of the ingredients are certified organic. The honey comes from Aroostook Valley Honey Farm in Fort Fairfield.

The jar warns you to “stir before using,” and you’ll know why the first time you open it. The herbs tend to float to the top and need to be stirred back into the honey. It’s kind of like stirring the oils back into natural peanut butter. I didn’t have to do any more stirring the second day I used the tea, so this may just be a first-time use issue. I did notice, even after experimenting with using different amounts of the mixture, that there’s always some “dregs” of herbs left at the bottom of the cup.

I like to make my own chai at home, but this will serve as a quick and easy alternative when I don’t feel like pulling out a pan and spices, and boiling milk and so on. I loved the ease of just putting a spoonful of the honey-tea mixture into some hot water. And yes, it does taste like tea, but tea that has a lot of honey in it, of course.

I enjoyed the Qi Chai enough that I’m looking forward to trying some of the company’s other blends, most of which are designed as some sort of health aid. There’s Nocturnal Nectar, a blend that contains valerian, chamomile and other herbs to help you sleep, and Bee-ing Better with ginger, echinacea and other healing herbs, plus a kick of cayenne to help you kick a cold. Mocha Chaga contains wild-foraged Maine chaga, a fungus that grows on birch trees and has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It also includes cacao, Maine sea salt, and lucuma, a Peruvian fruit filled with nutrients.

I bought my 8-ounce jar of Zen Bear Honey Tea at The Cheese Iron in Portland for $7.99. Zen Bear Honey Teas are also available at Lois’ Natural Marketplace in Scarborough, The Honey Exchange in Portland, Bow Street Market in Freeport, Morning Glory Natural Foods in Brunswick, and Now You’re Cooking and Bath Natural Foods in Bath.

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