Lipton Pure Leaf tea plastic bottles — a new packaging review

I received Lipton products for purposes of review. All opinions here, however, are my own.

Lipton saw my recent comment about not being able to find the new size recyclable PET plastic bottles to match their last insert coupon, and sent over a couple of samples. These are 18.5 fl oz plastic bottles, as opposed to the old 16 fl oz glass bottles.

The packaging

MashupDad saw me open the box of these, and his first question was: “Why did someone send you a bunch of olive oil?” Don’t store these by your cooking and baking supplies! lol

Honestly? I like the old bottles much better. Maybe I have little girlie hands, but I didn’t find the new bottles at all ergonomic — they were awkward to hold and drink from, and my hand didn’t fit around the new bottle well… I’d pour this into a glass over ice, but I wouldn’t drink it out of the bottle. They also don’t fit well into the cup holder into my car.

Here’s a pic of the old Lipton Pure Leaf glass bottle, for comparison. I do like that you get 2.5 more oz in the single serve Lipton Pure Leaf plastic bottles (it also comes in a bigger 59 oz multi-serve bottle), but the shape is really uncomfortable.

So why’d they design Lipton Pure Leaf plastic bottles that way?

According to Lipton, PET plastic is 100% recyclable, which makes the change to plastic bottles make more sense — and also, the new bottles are more lightweight and have “higher pallet efficiency” which means they can pack more in and use less fuel. Ahh! that’s why they are square. Although they could still put a little hand-friendly indentation in the middle of that rectangular bottom, I think…

The product

Here’s some info Lipton sent over, which I’m sharing because I was actually curious how Pure Leaf differed: “This all-natural iced tea begins with the freshest tea leaves picked at their peak. The leaves are then hand-selected from China, India, Africa and South America for their distinctive and smooth flavor by Pure Leaf’s Master Tea Blenders. Pure Leaf is proud to be Rainforest Alliance Certified™ for sourcing our tea sustainably.”

I’m currently sitting here drinking unsweetened, which contains brewed tea and citric acid. They also sent over sweet tea (brewed tea, sugar, citric acid), as well as lemon tea and green tea with honey. This is a good tea overall, and I like that they are sugar-sweetened with generally recognizable ingredients. But again, I prefer the old Lipton Pure Leaf glass bottles for the taste in addition to their being more ergonomic. Maybe it’s completely psychological, but I think that the tea picks up a little of a plastic-y taste from the new Lipton Pure Leaf plastic bottles. I also wish they made more flavors of the unsweetened, because I usually prefer it over the sweet teas.

The fine print

Lipton provided Pure Leaf tea samples for the purposes of this review. All opinions in this post, however, are my own.