I normally prefer coffee to tea but I make the exception for iced teas which I find to be one of the most refreshing drinks in warm weather. I didn't used to like them at all, as I found that the taste was often too weak for me. Then my friend made me a lovely drink from some instant lemon tea powder and I realised how nice iced tea could actually be. So I thought I would try some ready made ones again, starting with Liptons as they are the easiest to find.


My local corner shop offers Liptons Ice Tea in 3 flavours - mango, peach and lemon. I wanted to try one of the more exotic versions but only lemon was in stock, so I bought that. It cost £1.30 for a 500ml bottle. The bottles neck is rather wide, so it did not feel especially comfortable to actually drink from it. It does make pouring the tea out into a glass easier, which is how I would usually prefer to serve it, but that wasn't possible when I was out and about. The other advantage of drinking it from a glass is that you can make sure the drink is really cold by way of adding ice cubes to it. Although my bottle came from a chiller cabinet it didn't feel cold enough to suit me, which I do think makes the drink taste less refreshing. The portion that I drank at home, with ice, tasted so much better. Once opened, the drink has to be kept in the fridge anyway, and consumed within 5 days. It has the advantage over fizzy drinks of not going flat if you don't want to drink all of it at once too.


The tea look like a medium brewed cup of "normal" tea, only without milk added of course. It smells more of tea than of lemon, and unfortunately that is also how it tastes. I expected to taste a bit more of the fruits tartness, to counteract the sweetened tea. I could taste more of the lemon as an lingering aftertaste than as a full part of the flavour which disappointed me. The tea taste is fresh and pleasant , and I like the smooth texture, but I wanted more lemon! I did notice that the actual lemon juice content is 0.1%, and while I know that lemon has a strong taste so adding a lot would be overwhelming, I would like to see the proportion of it upped slightly. I didn't think that the drink tasted very sweet, which is surprising considering the high levels of sugar it contains. Half a 500ml bottle has 19% of your RDA of sugars in fact. I half thought that by opting for a non fizzy drink, I would be doing more for my teeth, but know I am not so sure! On the positive side, there is only trace amounts of both fat and sodium.


Apart from wanting more lemon taste, I did like the flavour that was there. As mentioned above, I think when cold it is more refreshing than many soft drinks. I would buy it again to drink on the go, if I wasn't consuming any other high sugar things that day. You can also buy it in a can, and large multi serve bottles, but I prefer the smaller ones because it is a drink I like to have only every so often. If I have time to make a drink up at home, I prefer the taste of Quench Instant Lemon Tea which can be made hot or cold. It costs £1 for a bag that will make litres of the drink, so it is also cheaper. I have seen Liptons Ice Tea on sale for as much as £1.60 a bottle on a station kiosk, whick I think is too much. Multi buy offers do seem to be available quite often though. If you want to try it yourself, it is widely available in the supermarkets, as well as from W.H Smith, Superdrug, and Boots and other places.