Lipton

Lipton gets a bad rap. I get it too. It’s light, bland, and shallow.

I over-steeped my tea because I start with water that is less than a rolling boil, but really it was because I needed all that time to bring out any semblance of taste.

Lipton is a tea, but that’s about it.

You don’t even need two sentences to profile the flavor. I do pick up a little bit of toothpick taste on the tongue, which offers the same consolation I would get from compulsively chewing on one after a good meal.

Lets take a look at the descriptors directly from the Lipton site:
“capturing as much natural tea taste as possible. Lipton Black Tea has real tea leaves specially blended to enjoy hot or iced.”

Key phrases such as “natural tea taste,” “real tea leaves,” “specially blended.”
The same false pretext that gets us to try new things every day from retailers that simply want to appeal to the widest audience possible.

Even from a more expensive retailer, this tea still chalks up to less than 1 American cent per bag. And that my friends, is where it shines.
Lipton tea for me is not an experience, but the genius is in the marketing and placement. Budweiser, Folgers, even McDonalds.

We don’t choose these things because they are good. We choose them because they are too big to ignore, because our parents/friends/relatives do and have, for generations.
I got a sleeve of 50 bags from a coworker of mine because goodness forbid it, I ran out of tea… Not a bag in my desk to get by on! He immediately dropped off a sleeve without any reservation. I felt like the prisoner trying to bum a pack of cigarettes off of another inmate.

So Lipton still has its place on the shelf at every department store, gas station, hotel, airport, hostel, grandmother’s house, you name it. That iced tea that has come to the family cookout for years? It may be a doctored brew from the yellow giant itself. And you know what, that’s not a bad thing. It appeals to people, a lot of people. Then they find something with more depth and realize their palates have been muted by a commodity of blandness.

Without the bar standard that is Lipton, we simply would not take all of the other fabulous, enchanting, phantasmagorical options into the same realm outside the norm.

Yes, if anything else is on the shelf, tea cart, or menu I will probably choose it and enjoy the experience more fully. But I rest that feeling of thankfulness for good tea on Lipton. I’m sure it can bear that task.

Plus, I’d actually like to try their extra strength teabags. You know, for science.

I know this tea have lots of disrespect here. I completely understand it, because it’s so common – it can’t be good. Anyway, I will try to be unbiased.

I rather did supershort steep and it looks like I let it brew for 10 minutes at least.
I can finish it. That’s the positive. But tea itself? It’s even tea? Tannic, “tea”, dirty.

“Black Tea with 5% pressed leaves to release their essence” – that’s something I really dislike. I think it is that tannic + dirty taste.
I have one more bag from postcrossing (this one is from as well). I know why I don’t enjoy this one / with lemon it is bit better one.

Tried this tea at a motel. It was really tasty! The flavor is a light, deliciously spiced orange. A bit of sweetener really made it taste nice. No sourness, just sweet orange. A totally satisfying bagged choice.

Balanced aroma with base malty black tea, raspberry and passionfruit.
Very watery, bland taste, barely giving the impression of drinking black tea and with only slight traces of fruit.
Well, it’s Lipton, I didn’t expect much, but certainly more than this.

I got hit with such a bad vestibular migraine at work today I had to call it at my lunch break and take the rest of the day off (waiting an extra 30 minutes in the break room until the dizziness even calmed down enough that I felt I could safely get my car home, it was so strong). I rarely get that type of migraine, my M.O. is classic migraine, but not fun nonetheless. I zonked hard with my companion animal and when I felt her licking my face I decided to finally surface from bed and drink something for the nausea. I think I heard of this tea once from a tasting note of derk’s and found it just recently in my local grocery, so I grabbed it. It has both peppermint and ginger in it, the two things I like when my stomach is crap, so I made a mental note that if it ever showed up in a local store I’d grab it… and then it did. So today is the day to christen that box.

The cup actually smells quite nice… it smells of mint and ginger and also licorice root, though that is probably mostly the fennel that is advertised in large letters on the front of the package. It also has a quite citrusy aroma. Flavor is minty and a little spicy, I can feel some warmth on the back of my throat but it isn’t lingering or unpleasant. The clove also leaves a bit of an aftertaste as well. It is subtly earthy, has a bit of a citrus touch, and a strong licorice flavor and sweetness. It is a nice tea, I wish the menthol notes were coming out just a touch stronger but otherwise this is a pretty solid sick blend.

This tastes kind of like a tart lemon candy. It needs sugar to bring the flavor out, but it’s decently tasty. It gets really bad reviews, which is too bad. It’s nothing special, but I don’t mind its fakeness since it’s more like lemon candy to me than actual lemons.

This was a nice chamomile that I had hot at breakfast while I was staying at a motel over the weekend. It’s about what you’d expect. No complaints! It’s difficult to rate a tea like this that’s almost by definition not exciting, but also perfectly pleasant.

Balanced taste of grapefruit and pear, with only traces of weak, poor quality green tea in the background. Not bad, but not especially good either.

Slightly spicy and earthy aroma.
A mixture of spices in the taste. Largely unrecognisable, but cardamom definitely comes to the front. And there is a solid earthy background from the base black tea.
Not bad as an everyday tea, specially from Lipton, but there’s nothing fancy about it.

Very good. I always have this in my cupboard.

Not bad, but would not repurchase.

Quite a different flavor.

Not my cup of tea. Did not enjoyed the flower-ish flavor.

I like this one.

Strange flavor. Would not repurchase.

Good and different tea.

I did not enjoyed this one.

A good black tea.

Very strange flavor.

Not my cup of tea. Did not liked the sweetness of the “macaroon” part and did not enjoyed the strong green tea flavor.

Not my cup of tea. Did not liked the pomegranate flavor nor the strong green tea flavor.