What's in Lipton Teabags??

[sizmo]

Hello everyone. I have been searching everywhere for an answer to this.

I love black tea, but i cannot help but notice a difference in Lipton Black Tea teabags, compared to other black tea.

Can someone please tell me exactly what type of Black Tea is being used in Lipton Yellow Label Teabags?

I want to know so I can buy loose leaf. The other brands of black tea at the grocery are weaker and give me headaches.

Thank you so much for any replies ... have a wonderful day!

[Ethan Kurland]

sizmo,

Almost all teabags like Lipton are made in only several factories that pack for many companies. The skill is in consistently providing the same drinking experience year after year though the teas and tea dust (up to 35%) will come from different sources and vary in proportion to adjust to changes in character of harvests of many countries. One tea bag usually has tea from at least a few countries. You will not duplicate the taste of Lipton that teabag master packers accomplish through very particular blending with the purchase of loose tea unless it is the blend used for Lipton's bags. Perhaps Lipton sells its blend unbagged.

If you like Lipton's bags, I do not understand why you would not continue to use them. Why switch to loose tea?

I don't have a clue what gives you headaches when drinking other brands' teabags. I will say that when one drinks a blend of teas in a bag, his drink has been infused with teas that have come from more than one country and maybe even from a few continents. Tea bag producers have vents pulling tea dust out of the air that is put into teabags. Blends are made as "chests" of leaves are dumped into mixing bins (which raises the dust that requires workers to wear masks to deep it out of their lungs). This is big business.

If you want tea that I consider to be much better than what you have been drinking, I and others here have lots of suggestions. It will taste different.

Welcome to teaforum.

[Chadrinkincat]

I’ve seen yellow tins of loose Lipton at nyc Chinatown so maybe you can find it online too.

[sizmo]

@Ethan Kurland

Thank you so much for your informative reply.

Sometimes i like to make very strong tea. And i am a bit addicted to it, I'd rather not dunk 2 teabags into a Mug and look like a weirdo around my room mates.

I thought it was as simple as getting it in loose leaf and heaping it into my cup. I'm clearly an amateur at this... lol

Thanks so much again

[Dresden]

Yeah, I think I have run across the loose Lipton in tins as well.

Personally, my go-to base for iced teas is a nice Kenilworth Estate Ceylon. It's brisk with slight citrus notes and really good with a slice of lemon. Very cost effective too!

[pantry]

Ethan Kurland

Thank you so much for your informative reply.

Sometimes i like to make very strong tea. And i am a bit addicted to it, I'd rather not dunk 2 teabags into a Mug and look like a weirdo around my room mates.

I thought it was as simple as getting it in loose leaf and heaping it into my cup. I'm clearly an amateur at this... lol

Thanks so much again

Double bagging yellow label Lipton in a mug, topped with whole milk/half& half is my guilty pleasure. I only avoid it because of the pesticide concern. There are higher quality teas out there that you can brew as dark as Lipton. Maybe try brewing the tea in a vessel with high heat retention, or boiling the tea? Flavor might not be identical, but you definitely can get an equally strong brew

[Dresden]

Hello everyone. I have been searching everywhere for an answer to this.

I love black tea, but i cannot help but notice a difference in Lipton Black Tea teabags, compared to other black tea.

Can someone please tell me exactly what type of Black Tea is being used in Lipton Yellow Label Teabags?

I want to know so I can buy loose leaf. The other brands of black tea at the grocery are weaker and give me headaches.

Thank you so much for any replies ... have a wonderful day!

I just did some quick google-fu and it looks like on the Wal-Mart website you can order the loose leaf Lipton for about $4.50 per 1/2 pound.

[Bok]

Two teabags per cup is perfectly reasonable, that way the strength is there, yet the infusion is not long enough to turn bitter, acidic and or turn out all the other bad stuff that is in the bag...

If that is being weird, you should try creeping out your flatmates with tiny teapots and cups! Haha

[Baisao]

@sizmo

I think you will prefer most any loose leaf tea over what Lipton (and other bag tea sellers) are offering. The quality of teas used in bagged tea tends to be pretty low and I think this is most easily seen with green tea.

Just this evening I did a comparison of green teas for some teenagers. One was a loose leaf green tea from Japan and the other was a Lipton green tea with pomegranate added to it.

What you can’t see is that the Lipton tea smelled “artificial”, “like it has junk added to it”, “fake sweet”. The Japanese tea was described as “fresh”, “alive”, “naturally smells like cherries”.

What you can see is that the loose leaf Japanese tea is not stale. It’s vibrantly green and still rich with polyphenols. It does not need artificial flavorings added to it to make it palatable. It is wholesome and delicious.

In contrast, the Lipton tea looks like dirt from sweeping the floor, or dried oregano that’s sat in the back of the pantry for a decade. The chlorophyll has faded badly and it almost certainly has fewer polyphenols in it. It is artificial and foul.

Their black tea probably has as many issues. Even a modest loose leaf black tea would be an improvement.

[swordofmytriumph]

@sizmo, I agree with @Baisao, you can get lots of really good quality loose leaf teas for a reasonable price that are worlds better than Lipton.

[sizmo]

...I only avoid it because of the pesticide concern.

Hi.. can you tell me more about this? Thanks for your reply

[pantry]

...I only avoid it because of the pesticide concern.

Hi.. can you tell me more about this? Thanks for your reply

I read it from a news article a while back about some of the biggest, internationally known tea brands having the most pesticide residues in a lab test. The company even had to come out and say they would address the issue and tighten its quality control. If you google ‘Lipton pesticide’ you’ll see a bunch of articles about it (for example, from greenpeace.org).

Now, I don’t know how reliable these sources are, but I have a hard time believing that a super cheap, mass produced tea like Lipton can be healthy. Besides, how can they compensate their workers fairly at such low cost? That being said, I still give in from time to time since it’s conveniently available for free at work, but I try not to.

One thing that amazes me, is how flexible Lipton is! The water at work tastes really funny, and renders all my nice puerh and oolong undrinkable. But somehow Lipton tastes just fine

[Ethan Kurland]

sizmo, You might like to get some empty cotton bags to fill with loose tea yourself. These may be used many times. You can fill them with more than 2 grams of tea (what is a typical teabag) and not look weird to your workmates. Tetley's British Blend & even more expensive brands are very much like the Lipton you like but have 2.5 grams of tea in a bag usually so give more flavor. (One of those in smaller cup than you have been using and you might be set if you don't get a headache.)

Since your desire seems to be having a simple, strong cup of tea, a lot of options seem open. Moving up only slightly in quality and expense... (Single source tea, not blends, leads to less risk of getting a particular pesiticide to give you a headache.)

When retailing in person, I have sold some of these cotton teabags to people in situations similar to yours as well as a simple black tea from Taiwan (not on list in my vendor thread.) If you don't find what you need elsewhere, contact me.

Companies can influence manufacturers on which teas are chosen for blending for their bags (what is emptied from chests) and how much tea dust is added. (Some expensive brands have only 15% dust.) However, in this process, pesticides' residue from all over the world are in the rooms that teabags come from.)

By the way, I still enjoy any brand teabag of Irish Breakfast tea, brewed strongly in the jars of fruit preserves that are 99.5% empty, with milk, any time I come to the end of jar. Cheers

[sizmo]

@Ethan Kurland

Thank you so very much for your time and quality of information provided to me. I really appreciate it

Thanks also to all the other great helpful answers given!

You guys are awesome fellow tea drinkers ... Cheers

[sizmo]

@Ethan Kurland

What i did forget to mention, is that over the years i had switched over from coffee to Tea.

I found that black tea was a good replacement because it had the right amount of caffeine without the jitters of coffee.

What would you say are some other rich types of black tea with a high caffeine content? (if you are aware)?

Thanks