Has anyone tried Lipton tea lately?

I'm going with the downward spiral of your poor tastebuds. :)

Honestly it can be a couple of factors. Time of day, quality of water, and personal taste. They only have Lipton in my office (which I barely ever touch) but when I do it is always to add some sugar to and get all the caffeine and sugar as possible early in the day or to keep me going for the last hour.

It is always slightly bitter and acidic and harsh, especially if brewed for 5 minutes! However, I'm always one to say go with what tastes good to *you* not some critic or whoever else. My best suggestion to you would be to try a few other teas in this class and then decide: Taj Mahal Brand Tea (found in Indian groceries), PG Tips, Typhoo (nice if you like strong tea), or a good english breakfast tea.

I have not noticed any changes, or any changes for the better in Lipton over the past 10 years or so... but that's just me.

- Dominic Drinking: Taj Mahal Brand Assam w/honey

I've ben drinking PG Tips and Taj Mahal for quite a while now. I am not saying that Lipton is the best tea I've ever had, but what I had today was perfectly acceptable in a bind. And believe me, before this I would not touch any Lipton product with a 10-foot pole. Taj Mahal still remains my favorite because the price is right and it is a stronger brew than Lipton.

I do think the mainstream brands have been forced to improve their blends due to the increased availablity of gourmet teas. I read that a few years ago Tetley changed its formula. They replaced their "original" blend with the "classic" blend, which is supposedly the same blend they sell in the UK. I am beginning to think that Lipton may have quietly done the same. I noticed that the phrase "Brisk" no longer appears on their packaging. In fact, the package is a lot closer to the Lipton Yellow Label packaging that the rest of the world gets.

The Lipton provided in your office may be a foodservice version or it may just be old. There's a takeout place in the lobby of my building where coffee and tea are sold and I noticed that they are still selling Tetley Original Blend, which was discontinued by Tetley about six years ago.

I have been drinking Lipton's green tea and like it. I quit drinking Lipton's black many years ago because it made my teeth extra sensitive. Today I fished a 4 oz can of Twining's Jasmine from the back of a top shelf. It has been there for many years. Instead of throwing it out, I made a pot for lunch. It was still fragrant and tasted good. How long will tea keep as a general rule? MLB

It depends on the type of tea and how it is being stored. Fannings and dust, which are used in tea bags, deteriorate more quickly than whole leaves. The usual advice is to use it within one year of manufacture.

That being said, however, at other peoples' houses I have had tea made from very old teabags - Red Rose and Tetley. I could tell they were old because the packaging had been redesigned several years earlier, and these were still the old design. I cringed when I saw that, but I was surprised that the tea tasted just fine.

I had another cup of Lipton this afternoon. I did not enjoy it as much as the first one from this morning. It is not as good as PG Tips or Taj Mahal, but it still seems a lot better than I remembered it being years ago.

"Has anyone tried Lipton tea lately?"

When hell freezes over maybe.

Wow, what a helpful response!

I wasn't sure if you had tried any of those or not, sorry I'm new 'round here. The Lipton we have in my office is bought weekly from the grocery store next door. One box of decaf and one regular, so it is fresh (as can be) and regular retail stock. I realy haven't noticed a difference, not to say there hasn't been one, just that I haven't detected it. I do think a lot of both coffee and tea companies have had to get their stuff together and put out a little better product (or market their old product as new and hip and "premium") to compete, but Lipton is still pretty low on my personal list. I always hate to seem like a tea snob, it is just that the same money can buy me so many more wonderful teas from the asian market that it is hard for me to even consider Lipton. Even a change to Salada or Red Rose is a step above Lipton to me, so I really place it low. Any tea that I can't drink without adding sugar is at the bottom.

- Dominic Drinking: Chamomille Tea.

Well, to think about it, good tea is picked in Spring, and is still pretty darned good in Winter. Back when tea was a major economic driver of the British Empire, it could take months for the stuff to get from garden to shop, sit there for a few months, end up in a caddy, , and quite some time to reach the bottom of the caddy.

It doesn't go off, and if kept cool and dry and dark and away from circulating air, it shouldn't deteriorate too quickly. And if it started out at a lower quality, you can hardly expect to see it get much worse than you'd expect new low-quality tea to be.

Makes me wonder what Pu-erh would taste like if the mold didn't set in...

--Blair

I agree with you. Lipton is by no means my favorite; all I am saying is that it will do in a pinch. In the past, I might have said I'd rather have nothing at all. I drank Red Rose for many years but got lately I have gotten tired of it. It just seemed tasteless to me after I'd been drinking Taj Mahal for a while. Maybe after some time away from it, it will taste better to me, like the Lipton does.

I had another cup of Lipton this afternoon. It was not horrible, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I did that first cup earlier in the day. Maybe that first cup just exceeded my low expectations. I will probably use the rest of the Lipton for iced tea. Iced tea seems to taste pretty much the same no matter what brand I use, so I tend to use whatever is cheap and save my money for more expensive teas that I like to drink hot.

If we're talking about the Lipton tea sold bagged in US supermarkets, said response is right on the money.

stePH

And if it started out at a

Well, I don't know about that. If I had to have low quality tea, I would at least prefer it to be fresh, wouldn't you? And I wouldn't want something that was really stale, no matter how high quality it was purported to be when it was first made.

Said response is NOT "right on the money." The original question was about whether the blend used for Lipton tea had changed. It's a legitimate question and on topic for this group. The response "when hell freezes over" does nothing to answer the question or further the discussion and just smacks of snobbery. Maybe it has changed. Maybe it is a lot better than it used to be. Then again, maybe it isn't. You'll never find out if you adopt such a dismissive attititude.

Who is to say what's good or bad, anyway? We don't all like the same things. I can't stand fruit-flavored teas, but clearly a lot of other people do like them because the varieties are endless. Drinking something that is moldy like pu-erh doesn't appeal to me at all - I would choose a cup of Lipton over that any day. But others don't feel the same way. How about we drop the elitist attitudes and show a little respect for those who are contributing to the group? If a topic doesn't interest you, you're not obliged to comment or even read it.

"stePH" wrote in news:1139200963.623860.283110 @g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

I agree, but as a matter of fact I had tried a Lipton's teabag just recently. It was every bit as bad as I had expected, but I was permanently disenchanted with the brand many years ago, when I first began to realize that L.'s simply *would not* make as drinkable a masala chai as Taj Mahal, regardless of the spices used nor the sweetnener nor the nature of the lightener. :)

Ozzy

I was permanently

I have no doubt that you are correct. But let's face it, the Lipton tea sold in America wasn't intended to be used as a base for masala chai. There is a reason that Taj Mahal is stronger - because people in India do use these teas for chai. Likewise, tea in England is blended stronger because it needs to stand up to the addition of milk.

The United States is a very large and ethnically diverse country, as everyone knows. So it stands to reason that anything that is mass-marketed on a nationwide basis - like Lipton tea or Folgers coffee or any popular brand of beer - is going to be rather middle-of-the-road, not too strong, not too weak. Of course no product is going to be to everybody's taste. I wish that the tea sold in American supermarkets was more like what is sold in England. But I'm grateful that even though this isn't the case, there are plenty of other outlets out there where I can find something that is more to my liking. Not necessarily better or worse, just more in line with my personal preferences.

Why, just yesterday I drank a paper cup stuffed with a Lipton teabag, with sugar and milk that I added my very self. I bought it at the corner deli run by a friendly Yemeni fellow, and drank it at the bus stop. It didn't kill me.

Michael

Your domain is available -

I wish the tea sold in US supermarkets were more like what's sold in China.

/Lew

"Pat" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

...

Sounds reasonable enough, and bottom line, no-one can argue with personal taste, however much they disagree with it.

I also observe that main-line America has not exactly been a nation of tea-drinkers, either. That's slowly changing -- you can find more diverse & better teas in an average chain supermarket than you could thirty years ago. (Obviously more shelf space is still set aside for various brands of coffee, some in enormous cans, because more demand is expected.) The traditional preference for tea in the UK is doubtless responsible for the difference you mention in the quality of supermarket brands.

My personal taste says that Lipton's are, if not the worst of readily available tea bags, certainly far from preferrable. Judging by some of the responses in this thread so far, I'm not alone.

However, people's tastes matter mostly to themselves. Most people in the US find themselves in situations where Lipton is the only tea available, because it is so very common. Surely the person who can readily accept that, or even enjoy the cup of necessity, is better off.

Ozzy

And that is why it is so difficult to find good tea in American supermarkets. They've all been blended to be lighter and less robust - and that may be OK for iced tea, but if you like a good strong cuppa, you usually have to go searching beyond the supermarket shelves. It can be found, but sometimes you really have to look.

That's slowly changing -- you can find more diverse

Yes, and I do think the quality of what is offered in supermarkets is improving as a result of the increased competition from gourmet/specialty teas and coffees.

The

It's a catch-22. Do the British have better quality supermarket teas because they are serious tea drinkers, or are they serious tea drinkers because better quality tea has been made available to them. Likewise, do Americans have lesser quality tea on their supermarket shelves because they don't care about tea, or do they not like tea because what they've tried was of middling quality?

I agree. Lipton is far from my favorite, but I would choose it over a lot of the fruit-flavored teas I see in supermarkets. But I do think some people are a bit over the top with their hatred for Lipton - I get the distinct impression that some would rather drink raw sewage than Lipton. It all gets a bit ridiculous.

Exactly. I honestly think that proper preparation is more important to making a good cuppa than the brand of tea that is used. Naturally, better quality tea will taste better, but even a mediocre tea can suffice when need be if it is well-prepared.