About Candie Expertise I can answer questions about specific teas and their health benifits including herbals. I can help you find a specific tea or accessories that you are looking to purchase.
Experience I have an online tea store and have done extensive research on the subject for the last few years. I am the editor of the Tea catagory for dmoz and am very familiar with all the other tea sites. I write articles on tea for Suite101 and other publications.
Expert: Candie Date: 9/20/2006 Subject: quality of Lipton tea
Question All my life I have used only loose, Lipton tea.
#1, it's getting harder to find on to store shelves (usually 1 or 2 boxes pushed to the back) and #2 I'm having to use more and more tea to get the 'tea' flavor and still it is not as good as it once was.
Now in my family, I'm known as a tea 'snob'. I know my good tea. All get togethers, they MUST have my tea, but I'm really getting discouraged.
When I find it, I put some out in a sealed container, and place the rest in the freezer, thinking it will be fresher.
My opinion is, there are so few loose tea user that it sets in the stores too long before I buy it. either that or the company has started cutting it with something similar and hence the flavor is changed.
Would appreciate any insight on this problem.
Thanks,
JR
Answer In this day and age of the Internet I am surprised that anyone buys loose tea from the stores. The age of the tea it self may be the reason for the lack of flavor. Lipton does strongly cut there teas with other ingredints to level the flavor to the standard lipton flavor. Tea starts lossing flavor after as few as 6 months and has dramic loss of flavor after 12 months. I suggest you find a good online vendor like my store at http://www.culinaryteas.com. We have a brisk business and our tea never gets a chance to get old or stale.
