In a State of Sipping Bliss Glass Dharma Straws Review and Giveaway!

What's your favorite beverage? Is it a smoothie, bubble tea, iced coffee, or a piña colada? Whatever you love, isn't it much more fun sipping it through a straw? I have the cheeriest childhood memories of slurping chocolate milk through flexible paper (and later, plastic) pastel-colored straws. Drinking anything through a straw (even maté tea) just makes me feel like a kid again.

But paper and plastic straws are disposable, and aren't we all looking for ways to live more sustainably? Enter Glass Dharma Straws—They're reusable, sustainable, and beautiful. They're so durable, they come with a lifetime guarantee! If you accidentally damage or break your straw, they will repair or replace it for free! And this is the part I love best: You don't have to choose between paper or plastic anymore!

Glass Dharma straws are also:

• Made in the USA
• Non-porous and hypoallergenic
• Handmade from borosilicate glass—the strongest type of commercially available glass on the market
• Great for all hot and cold drinks
• Perfect in specialty drinks like bubble teas, shakes and smoothies, and iced drinks
• Beautiful in cocktails—they make a highfalutin' accessory to any martini glass
• Kid-friendly and kid-safe
• You can even use them for drinking wine, coffee and tea so you don't stain your teeth. (Okay, maybe you'd raise a few eyebrows sipping your Merlot through a straw. Although maybe not—check out the snazzy little decorative dots number further down in this post.)

If you plan to take your eco-chic Glass Dharma straw with you when you dine out, I encourage you to buy a neat little hemp sleeve carrying case that will fit easily into your purse, pocket, or backpack. You can see mine on the table in the lower right-hand corner of the photo below. I brought my GlassDharma straw with me out to Manola's the other night and enjoyed sipping my Thai iced tea with coconut milk so much more. I already carry my own chopsticks, so why not my own straw? The chopsticks even fit inside the carrying case along with the straw! BYOS, is my new motto when eating out, which stands for: bring your own stuff! Speaking of which, did you know there's a movement to have restaurants encourage patrons to bring their own reusables and even offer reusables for sale as an upgrade to menu items? Check out TakeOutWithout, a company whose mission is to reduce restaurant waste. I learned about them on Glass Dharma's blog.

No, Johnny Depp didn't just walk in to the restaurant. 

I'm simply in a state of sipping bliss!

Glass Dharma straws are available in several sizes, and I really like their smaller gauge (7mm) "shorty" straws. They're 6.25" long and perfect for small children, juice glasses, martinis, and my favorite new grab-and-go beverage: So Delicious single-serve vanilla coconut milk beverage! This straw is thin enough to fit in the little punch-hole where the plastic straw would normally go in. My straw has red decorative dots on it. They also make decorative dots in Green, Blue, Amber, Clear, and Black. Yes, come to think of it, that straw would look quite grand in a glass of red wine!

I recently got a bag of acai powder from Mountain Rose Herbs and thought I'd use it to make a breakfast smoothie. Since I am prone to gulping down my smoothies rather than sipping them, I thought that sipping one through a Glass Dharma straw might encourage me to slow down and savor the the flavor. Check out the vibrantly beautiful fuchsia-like color of this one:

To make this smoothie, I blended together 1 cup cranberry juice, 1 tablespoon Acai berry powder, 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, 1/2 cup frozen raspberries, and 2 teaspoons agave.

I've had no problem cleaning my GlassDharma straws either by hand or in the dishwasher (which we seldom use). But if I ever forget to rinse one out right after using it, it's kind of nice to have a cleaning brush on hand. They're available as an optional accessory, but one is included when you buy a set of four straws.

I'm really tickled about my new glass straws. Like Dorcas Lane from the BBC series, Larkrise to Candleford, these straws are my one true weakness. (If you've never seen the show, this character says that about everything she loves.)

Would you like to win your very own Glass Dharma straws and make them your "one true weakness"? One lucky reader will win a $25.00 Gift Certificate from GlassDharma! To enter, visit GlassDharma's website, and then leave a comment here telling me which straw you'd most like to own or give as a gift. The winner will be selected in a random drawing and notified by email. Glass Dharma will also email the gift certificate to the winner.  (What I'm saying here, is please make sure that I can access your email address when you enter!) Open only to US and Canadian residents, please. Contest ends 1/31/11 Good luck!!!!

If you'd like to earn extra entries you can do any and/or all of the following: (You don't have to do any of these to win, but you'll earn 1 additional entry for each one you do and let me know about in your comments.)

• Follow this blog.
• Tweet this: Make sipping your smoothie sustainable and fun! Win a $25 gift certificate from @GlassDharma Straws! http://bit.ly/dEzLPk
• Follow Glass Dharma on twitter
• Follow me on twitter
• Mention this contest on your blog and include a link to this post.
• Post a link to this contest on your Facebook page.