Anyone who has ever gone out for a meal with me has learned that the beverage I almost exclusively drink is iced tea. I don’t know if it’s the Englishman in me and that famed British love of tea or what, but I do enjoy me a glass or three of iced tea. Heck, I’m sitting at a coffee shop right now, with an unsweetened black tea in the cup next to me. It’s my fourth cup of tea today.
Yeah, me and tea. Any kind of tea really. And when I had the chance to sample a new tea from that bastion of the tea leaf, Lipton, I not only availed myself, I made iced tea to see how it tasted cold. And since I love trivia, I have to add this: Lipton Tea was founded back in 1880 by Scottish entrepreneur Sir Thomas Lipton, who started his business by purchasing tea growing estates in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). 13 years later he opened up his first tea packing facility in Hoboken, NJ, and it’s been there ever since. He was so darn successful that he started the biz at the age of 40 and by the time he turned 48 he’d been Knighted by the Queen. Nice job, Tom!
The assignment I was working with was to combine Lipton’s delicious new Natural Energy teas, Best Foods (known as Hellmans on the East Coast) and Knorr soup mix to make a complete lunch, and I had a great time playing mad scientist with that. To start, I popped over to the local Walmart, where I was faced with the daunting array of Lipton tea choices in the market section:
I think a lot of people think that Lipton just makes standard black tea but there are quite a few choices, as you can see here, even some specifically designed for iced tea or for the cold brew process.
I grabbed a box of the “Natural Energy” tea, 40 tea bags foil wrapped (for freshness, of course), then went down to the next aisle to grab some Knorr soup mix:
I grabbed a packet of the Vegetable soup mix, but I wasn’t planning on making soup.
Fortunately, they still let me buy it! 🙂
Back home I mixed up two tablespoons of Best Foods Olive Oil Mayonnaise with one tablespoon of the Knorr soup mix:
Tasty looking, isn’t it?
Before I made my turkey sandwich, I tossed a few Natural Energy teabags in my cup of iced tea (well, cup of cold filtered water):
Okay, so while that was steeping and getting delicious and dark, I coated one slice of bread with the new spread, then stacked slices of turkey up, then a thick slice of sharp cheddar cheese.
A few blueberries to make it even more healthy and here’s what I had on my plate:
Put all the pieces together and it was one fabulous lunch:
In fact, it was so good that I couldn’t wait to take the above photo and had a bite. As a test, of course.
Fast, easy, and quite tasty. The only warning I’d give you is that if you’re heavy handed with the Knorr soup mix in your sandwich spread mix, it can end up being salty because it’s designed to be diluted in water. A little bit, mix it up, and taste it for yourself! Tip: You can learn more about Lipton Teas here: Lipton Teas @ Walmart, and Lipton Teas @ Lipton.
And I have a sandwich to finish and a cup of perfectly steeped iced Lipton tea to drink, so cheerio!
#TEARifficPairs #CollectiveBias