On a global quest for perfect tea leaves

LIPTON® PureLeaf™ is our finest and purest iced tea, made with fresh brewed tea using only pure, all natural ingredients, no preservatives and no high fructose corn syrup. Because it is such a pure tea, it must be carefully blended using only the finest tea leaves. We entrust this job only to our Master Tea Blenders.

Meet our Master Tea Blenders

LIPTON’s® Master Blenders, Gilbert Kendzior and John Cheetham, bring their tea expertise and passion from the tea fields into every bottle. Our Master Blenders live tea… they drink it, smell it, touch it and know it. They personally hand-select teas from China, India, Africa and South America and hand-blend them to create teas containing the perfect balance of aroma, body and flavor.

What does it take to become a Master Blender? There’s no set path. Gilbert joined LIPTON® in 1980 and soon found himself evaluating hundreds of teas a day and bidding for the very best teas at the weekly tea auctions in Ceylon. Later stints in Malawi and Kenya taught Gilbert the finer points of tasting, buying, and manufacturing tea.

John started over a decade ago as a tea trader for LIPTON®, evaluating and trading teas from estates in Kenya and Tanzania. Moving on to Sri Lanka, John found himself tasting and evaluating up to 600 cups of tea a day as our tea buyer at the Colombo tea auction.

When it comes to tea, Gilbert and John’s palates are legendary. This is, above all else, their most distinguishing qualification as Master Blenders. Unknown to many outside the tea world, the quality of tea varies not just from country to country, or region to region, but also within a single estate. It can even vary on a daily basis. To complicate things even further, tea is harvested roughly every 2 weeks, for up to 52 weeks a year. But by simply "slurping" the tea liquor to the back of their palates — thus aerating it and allowing full aroma, taste and thickness to be experienced — Kendzior and Cheetham can determine a tea's intrinsic value. They can also tell where a tea sample was grown; what time of the year it was picked; how it was processed; how it should be blended; and what it's worth.

In addition to their highly refined palates, Gilbert and John also possess an encyclopedic knowledge of tea, including the optimum growing conditions and prime harvest times for each tea-growing region. Beyond that, they are also well versed in the intricacies of global weather, as well as the agricultural, economic, and political conditions of even the most remote corners of the world.

So, while ensuring absolute quality and consistency may seem like an impossible task to most people, it's the Master Blender’s single-minded dedication and artisanship that makes LIPTON® PureLeaf™ iced tea a truly exceptional beverage. Extraordinary? Yes, but your taste buds will thank you the next time you enjoy a bottle of LIPTON® PureLeaf™.