Lipton Ice Tea (Lipton Iced Tea)

Member Name: Whizz11

Product:	Lipton Iced Tea
Date:	22/07/08 (383 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tastes nice, different flavours

Disadvantages: Lot of sugar

If you've ever been to holiday in the United States you will know that Iced Tea is a menu staple and that it's the most popular alternative to carbonated soft drinks.

If you have never heard or seen Iced tea it can be described as a form of cold tea, often served in a glass over ice. It may or may not be sweetened. Regular iced tea is made from tea leaves. There are two ways to make it. Firstly you can steep the tea leaves in a large clear pot and leave in the sun for over an hour. This is my mums favourite way of making Iced Tea but it generally only works if you have sun (not so plentiful even during the summer in England) or steeping it in hot water for longer than usual. Most times the tea is drunk black but people often add lemon or other flavours which are nice as well.

Probably the most popular packaged brand here in England is Lipton. Now, because I drink my mums home made, proper Iced Tea I don't generally like the Liptons version as they have too much sugar in them but I decided to have one the other day and was quite pleasantly surprised as the flavour has seemed to improve since I last had one.

Lipton has been around for a long long time. It was created at the end of the 19th century by Sir Thomas Lipton in Glasgow, Scotland. It has been a Unilever product since 1972.

The reason why I choose the Lipton iced tea on this occasion was because I saw a label on the bottle saying it now has 35% less sugar than most regular soft drinks. I was out for lunch and wanted a drink but didn't want anything as heavy as a Coke so I decided upon this. That is the great thing about iced tea in my opinion, it is very light, crisp and refreshing and this brand was no exception. It had a nice smooth flavour to it and was very drinkable and definitely quenched my thirst. The tea had an added mango juice flavour as well. It was not too overpowering, just nice and light and gave it a hint of a fruit juice type drink but you still had the nice tea aftertaste. Lipton also do ice tea with Lemon, peach and green tea orange which sounds rather intriguing!

I know some people who love hot tea but can't stand iced tea. I would say it is an acquired taste, it definitely has a tea flavour, sometimes not as strong as a hot tea but it is still there. However, the best way to drink it is ice cold otherwise it can taste a bit like hot tea gone cold.

The other great thing about tea is that it contains antioxidants which are meant to be good for you. The Lipton version of this tea also contains no artificial colours, preservatives and sweeteners. I definitely think this is true as this drink was not sweet like some packaged iced teas can be.

I bought a 500ml bottle, the standard size for a bottle of drink at lunch time. Now, per 100ml there are 29 calories so if you drink the whole bottle you will have had 145 calories, so not great but still ok. The only thing though is that 100ml also contains 6.9g of sugar which in my opinion is quite high. Even though it doesn't taste sugary it still has a lot of sugar but this is what you get with most bottled drinks in my opinion.

All in all, I liked this iced tea, I would probably buy it again but I wouldn't be in a big rush to have it again as I prefer the natural iced tea that my mum makes!

Summary: Lipton Ice Tea