In 1871, Sir Tom Lipton from Glasgow opened a shop with his small savings. In a few years, this business grew and expanded into the tea-making business, it was 1890 when Lipton purchased the tea gardens in Ceylon, which is now Sri Lanka, and their first tea packets were sold.
This year, netizens were met with unexpected anguish when Lipton announced the death of their Prunus Persica-flavoured packaged frosty beverage. Just like Duo the Owl, 2025 has apparently robbed the world of the ever-popular Lipton Peach Ice Tea— or that’s what we thought. The following responses were taken from well-adjusted people:
The grief on display for a fruity drink can be so expressive and imaginative, that comments and posts range from all 5 stages of grief. “Why the actual f*** have I just seen a TikTok from Lipton ice tea saying they’re discontinuing the peach flavour”. Another user takes this time to assert the supremacy of the other popular flavour: “peach lipton iced tea maybe getting discontinued but LEMON WAS ALWAYS BETTER ANYWAY.”
Similar chaos unfolded on TikTok, where grief took on a more Gen-Z voice and slang. some users drew parallels with the recent death of Duolingo’s owl mascot. Lipton’s Tiktok account was also more engaging and enthusiastic with fan interaction, replying to commenters and occasionally busting their chops. Funnily enough, the account for toilet paper brand Kleenex UK also made an appearance offering invisible internet tissues to those mourning their favourite iced tea.
With such an overwhelming response, Lipton backpaddled and announced that their nectarine thirst quencher would be here to stay. The brand cheekily responded: “Oops, is it still March? Got my dates mixed up… thought it was April Fools already!“, and then apologising for the hiccup then referring to the fans as “pookies.”
Interestingly, Lipton teased that they would be rewarding the biggest fans with the best reactions by sending them something special, though further details were not provided. Lipton followed Duo the Owl to a Tea, and the peach flavour returned while making a splash in social media and public consciousness.
@liptonicetea who’s joining my peach support group? #RIPeach #liptonicetea
@liptonicetea did u really think she was going anywhere?! #liptonicetea #aprilfools
im taking the news of lipton ice tea discontinuing their peach flavour very personally as you can tell pic.twitter.com/84T2tnmDkg
— rosie🎃 (@pumpkinpalx) March 18, 2025
Sources: Lipton TikTok, PopBase
Gan contributed to this article.
