You know, I’ve been meaning to figure out what’s actually in those Lipton green tea bottles I grab from the store sometimes. So, the other day, I decided to take a closer look and really get to the bottom of it.

I started by picking up a few different kinds of Lipton green tea – you know, the regular kind and the citrus one. I figured I might as well compare them while I’m at it. First up, I grabbed the citrus version.

• Lipton Citrus Green Tea

When I flipped the bottle around and checked out the ingredients list, here’s what I saw:

• Water (well, that’s a no-brainer)
• High fructose corn syrup (Hmm, not super surprising, but a little disappointing)
• Citric acid (Okay, probably for that tangy flavor)
• Natural flavor (I guess that’s where the citrus part comes in?)

Next, I grabbed another bottle, this one looked a little different, but it’s still a Lipton Green Tea product, and the ingredients were a bit more detailed:

• Water (yep, still there)
• Sugar (Okay, straight-up sugar this time)
• Citric Acid, Sodium Polyphosphates (some kind of flavor protector, I’m guessing?)
• Green Tea (At least they use real green tea, though)
• Natural Flavor, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C!), Potassium Sorbate (to keep it fresh, probably)
• Phosphoric Acid, Acesulfame Potassium, Calcium Disodium, EDTA (to protect flavor, it says), Citrus Pectin

I thought it will be interesting to know where green tea comes from. After some looking around, I found that all these teas – black, green, oolong – come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. It’s just how they process it that makes them different. And get this, green tea has these things called polyphenols. The main one is something called epigallocatechin gallate, which sounds pretty fancy.

Then I stumbled upon some info about flavonoids. Apparently, tea is a major source of them, and they’re good for you. Lipton green tea has about 100mg of flavonoids per serving, which seems pretty decent. It’s supposed to be good for your heart or something.

They also mentioned that Lipton green tea has zero calories, which is a plus. And it has catechins that are supposed to help your metabolism and even reduce your waist size. I’m not sure how much of that is true, but it sounds good, right?

Finally, I saw that it contains 0 grams of added sugar and 100mg of flavonoids. It’s interesting how much stuff is packed into those little bottles. I think I’ll pay more attention to the labels from now on.

So, that’s my little adventure into the world of Lipton green tea ingredients. It was more complicated than I expected, but hey, at least I know what I’m drinking now!