The Superiority of Red Rose Tea

My Mum was right, again. Argh!

I have been a regular consumer of Lipton Tea for some years now. Mostly I drink iced tea (homemade), especially during the summer. In order to lose weight a few years back to qualify for a particular life insurance policy, I switched from Coca-Cola to Lipton Iced Tea. Since then I've been a big fan of Lipton, keeping our cupboard regularly stocked.


I started drinking hot tea more regularly, partly to reclaim my Canadian roots. Growing up, whenever we would visit my grandparents at their Ontario farm, for dinner we'd always have hot tea with our dessert. As a kid I remember being allowed to have a cup, and it was quite tasty. What I didn't know is that the brand of tea Grandma preferred was Red Rose.

My Mum reminded me of that fact several months ago. She saw that I was drinking more tea and wanted to know why I didn't use Red Rose, a superior tea. Since I'd become a Lipton man, I didn't want to bother with switching brands, what if I didn't like it? Besides, I've got fifty more Lipton bags to go through.

What prompted my Mum to increasingly insist I switch was that I had begun requesting a real teapot for Christmas/birthday/etc, just like my Grandma. In reclaiming my roots, I wanted to brew tea like they did in the old days, so my Mum challenged me to reclaim my roots farther and become a Red Rose man.

Today I declare that I have made the switch, I am no longer a Lipton man (though I still have about forty bags left...), I am now an official Red Rose man. As I prepared to write this morning, I took another sip of my superior Red Rose tea - and it was delightful.

How to describe the superiority? The Lipton flavor is a bit duller, the Red Rose has a cleaner taste to it.

I may still stick with Lipton for iced tea, but for hot tea, I'll savor Red Rose!