IKEA Tea: A Review

Hello hello!

IKEA is known for its self-assembly furniture, its Swedish roots, its amazing meatballs, and its exploitative efforts to deforest the remaining of Romania’s untouched forests while yet again proving that white people are destructive to everywhere else except their own homeland. However, when thinking of IKEA, do you ever think about tea?

I can say that I certainly did not, until last weekend, when on an IKEA trip, I stumbled upon IKEA-branded tea. 

So how does their tea hold up? Is it just as exploitative as their furniture? Let’s find out! 

Brewing Parameters:

Time: 3 minutes 

Brewing Temperature: 204°f (95.5°c) 

Size of Mug: 8oz 

Price: $5.00 per box of 25 tea bags

Side note: The instructions on the box says to use boiling water at 212°F (100°c),

except the boiling point for me is 204°F due to living at high elevation. 

Green Tea: To start, IKEA’s green tea was packaged in a box that would not open. To open the box, I had to shred it open. When brewing the tea, it quickly turned dark orange while being mute of any aroma. The taste of the tea was strong in notes of hay, with stale undertones of peanuts and cardboard. 

Black Tea: Just like the green tea, this box was nearly impossible to open without shredding. When brewing the tea, it turned quickly dark orange. The tasting notes were light in tree bark while being note-heavy in printer paper and cardboard box. It tasted identical to a Lipton tea bag, just a bit more stale and somehow more bitter. 

The Breakdown: 

While IKEA is upholding its Anglo-Saxon roots by being white as shit, they somehow managed to release a tea that’s somehow more basic than Lipton tea while being more than double the price. Not only were they able to be twice as bad at double the price, they were able to exploit both the consumer and tea culture -- which is a talent that no other company could achieve at such high excellence. 

To add, the boxes of tea both state that they are ‘Rainforest Alliance Certified’. Which, thank God we don’t have to worry about that when considering that the black tea is sourced and packaged from Sri Lanka -- which is known for paying its tea farmers $8.50 a day for near slave-labor in a system that was originally implemented by British settlers (sigh, British white people of course). We can all rest easy at night knowing that IKEA is not exploiting Sri Lanka’s rainforests, which should be a plus considering the fact that they’re already taking advantage a 3rd world country. But hey, like I said, at least Sri Lanka's rainforests are safe <3

Overall, I would not buy these teas again. If the Swedes want to be known for something, they should leave it at producing gay-icon pop stars instead, because IKEA will somehow make you think that their take on tea is so basic and white that Sidney Sweeney would appear in a commercial advertising this tea while saying her tea-bags are blue.

~Cody

aka The Oolong Drunk

"Blissfully Tea Drunk"