As an American, hell yeah I drink tea. But not Lipton’s, it’s garbage. That stuff makes “okay” iced tea, at best. If it’s caffeinated, Bigelow. If it’s herbal, Celestial Seasonings.
I never understand why Lipton is everywhere in continental Europe and America.
It’s not like us Brits are all drinking pure tips from a single estate managed by the current Earl Grey.
We drink good tea and it’s cheap, so why is it only common in the UK?
Yorkshire is my personal favourite but common brands like PG Tips are good too and I’m not sure I’d really taste the difference in a blind test. Almost everything is okay except the cheap economy supermarket own brands… and Liptons, which tastes of nothing if you have it light, or like mud if you stew it like a builder.
Conversely, I never understand why iced tea is so rare here. Lipton’s is a bit too sweet for me, but I like the fact that you can get in almost every convenience store on a nice hot day in southern Europe.
I would guess it’s cheap because it’s common and not the other way around (more sales per unit of shelf and warehouse space so it moves faster? Better bulk handling and shipping? Everyone knowing how to avoid overpriced crap?).
Seems that proper iced tea is pretty much unknown in Canada (at least in the eastern provinces). It took me a few times of ordering it and getting the canned Nestea stuff before realizing this. Now I just order “tea” with a large glass of ice, and deal with the strange looks.
Or a teabag and a cup of no longer boiling water… (grr).
I took a US train once, and had a cup of tea with lunch. When I asked for a second cup, the server asked if I wanted to reuse the teabag…
Nestea or Lipton Ice is pretty much everywhere in the UK now isn’t it? Also Lidl do their own.
Also, Americans drink tea?
Nope. 0 for 300 million. Never heard of the stuff.
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Just order hot tea and take it outside for a few minutes.
Muppets was only half a kids show. Significant chunks were only ever going to be funny to adults.
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I hate you. And I love you. And my children are going to get sick of hearing that joke.
I know I’ve told this story on the internet before, but perhaps not at BB.
I spent some time in Sri Lanka when I was younger, and at one point went to a tea plantation (where I was the only non-Sri Lankan, so conversations were spoken in Sinhalese and translated for my benefit by a close friend). They showed us the screens where the tea was sorted. The top screen had the largest wire weave; any tea leaves caught in it were sold to premium companies. The screens decreased in weave as you went down, as did the prestige of the companies which bought that level of tea leaf, until you got to the bottom (about 7 or 8 screens down), which allowed only tea dust to land on the floor. We were told that was swept up and included in the last screen’s offerings, and was sold only to Lipton because no one else would take it.
We were not wealthy or inspectors or even interested in buying tea, just friends giving a tour of their workplace to other friends, so while there might have been some exaggeration about the dust on the floor, there was no reason to doubt that the last screen, filled with near-dust, was for Lipton alone. Honestly, it LOOKED like the tea in a Lipton tea bag.
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Re: Iced tea, which is of course always served sweet in the South, in Alabama I worked at a local chain fast food place in my teens. They were sort of known for their tea. This is how we made it - one full Bunn coffee pot of (probably Lipton) tea + 12 oz cup of sugar dissolved in it when it was hot. So, basically, syrup. Really, you could put any kind of tea in there and it would taste good if you like things super sweet.
Oh, and as a Southerner living on Long Island, THIS is what New York feels like to me every single freaking day.
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This American drinks two liters of green tea each day; generally genmaicha, and always brewed from loose leaf. I began in the mid-’90s, and it’s become a habit, a ritual, and a source of great joy.
I mean, I genuinely love the whole process of brewing, warming my hands on the cup, and drinking. I recently picked up a Thermos teacup (that I saw here on BB!) designed to prevent the tea from cooling, and it works fantastically well… so well that I can’t use it; it feels bizarre to pick up the cup and not feel the warmth in my hand.
It’s interesting to me that the great majority of comments here reference iced tea; I suppose that makes sense in a culture where most “tea” is found as a sweetened beverage in coolers along with cans of Coke and Red Bull. I wish more people were willing to try the real thing; for me, it’s truly one of life’s great pleasures, and it’s much better for you than the processed stuff.
What? I heard recently that the English started using toothbrushes, is this rumo(u)r at all true?
Boy, lumping whole countries together like this sure makes things easier!
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I only feel this way in Midtown around tourists.
Around here, at least, the lipton iced tea that comes in glass bottles (which has become impossible to find in the last few years) is/was one of the best store-bought iced teas around. One of the few that actually tastes like tea.
The stuff in plastic bottles, however, is the typical vaguely lemony sugar water with almost no tea flavour at all.
Yeah, sure, just be more tea. Tell that to this poor bastard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcPMDjkzeOo
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Long Islanders make killer ice tea, though it may not be to southern tastes.
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My college-age brother looked at me during that commercial and said, “The muppets are still relevant?”
