So, I had a Mason jar of iced tea in my fridge, and couldn’t remember for the life of me what I had actually made. With my migraines memory loss is a persistent problem. I could tell from looking at the jar it was a black tea, and sniffing the tea, it smelled a bit like berries, particularly it sort of had a grapey aroma or black currant, but I definitely didn’t remember making my Black Currant Black iced, something I keep telling myself I should do. Finally I started looking back through my massive tea catalogue Excel file hoping a name would jog my memory… but that actually worked. Wanting to get more boxes of bagged tea out of my cupboards that I hardly ever drink, I decided to make an iced tea batch of some bagged Lipton I had been gifted ages ago by a former volunteer in my department of the library.
Oh boy, bagged Lipton… and this one is discontinued now, too.
I will say I was pleasantly surprised that it was in a sachet, not the stinky paper bags that I usually have to cut open when dealing with bagged teas because I will actually taste the paper otherwise, and it actually did smell… nice? There was a really pleasant fruity scent from the tea, and there still is with this finished ice batch, and that is probably why I would never have guessed that I had a Mason jar of Lipton tea sitting in my fridge.
It… tastes okay, I guess? Mostly, it just still tastes a bit weak to me, so if anything, I still think the base of the tea is the main problem. I used a teabag per cup of water (4 bags per 4 cups of the quart) but it just feels a little dull. That said, it isn’t unbarably bitter either, which is my usual response to bagged Lipton, so there is that. It’s actually drinkable, and does have a fruity note, it just isn’t nearly as pronounced in the actual tea as I’m getting from the aroma. It’s more like a muted berry flavor than any particular fruity flavors… where is the strawberry I was smelling? Or the grape? Or the black currant? Amazing how lackluster it all turns in the glass. But the best by date on this was April 2018, so maybe age has something to do with it, too.
Ah well, I still want to sip this down (really need to free up the space from these old gifted bagged teas…), so I still need to try this warm, and next time I make another batch of this iced, I’ll try overleafing it a smidge and seeing if that helps.
Surprisingly drinkable for a Lipton, and probably being fuller leaf in sachets has a lot to do with that.
Flavors: Berries, Malt
