Heisei Kids Drank Lipton. What Do Reiwa Kids Drink?

What's going on

Japan tends to slice its recent past by imperial era rather than by decade. Heisei ran from 1989 to 2019; Reiwa began in 2019 and is the current one. So "a Heisei high schooler" is a specific and faintly wistful thing to have been, in roughly the way "a nineties kid" is elsewhere.

The drink in question is Lipton — but not the teabags. In Japan the brand is best known for chilled milk tea and lemon tea sold in paper cartons, the kind you stab with a straw. For most of the Heisei era a 500ml carton cost about 100 yen at the school shop, which put it within range of a teenager's daily budget in a way that bottled drinks were not.

Someone posted a short, forward-looking question: Heisei kids drank Lipton, so what are Reiwa kids drinking? What came back was almost entirely a nostalgia avalanche from people who are no longer high schoolers, which eventually provoked a fairly reasonable complaint.

Comments

Heisei high schoolers drank Lipton. I wonder what Reiwa high schoolers are drinking.

平成の高校生はリプトン飲んでたけれど令和の高校生は何を飲んでるんだろ。

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500ml Lipton, 105 yen with tax. Drank one every single day~

リプトン500ml税込105円で毎日飲んでたわ〜

Man, nostalgic. The school shop sold the 500ml cartons for 100 yen. Plastic bottles weren’t really everywhere yet back then, so everyone bought one and just parked it on their desk. Probably some plastic bottle thing now? idk

懐かしいな高校の売店に500mlのパックのやつ100円で売ってた当時はペッドボトルがまだそんなに出回ってなかったからみんなそれを買って机に置いてた今はペッドボトルの何かじゃね？知らんけど

For real, I loved Lipton in high school and drank it every day. Always bought one before heading to the classroom.

まじで高校生の時リプトン大好きで毎日飲んでた。教室行く前に必ず買ってた

Nostalgic,, everyone had a 1-liter milk tea sitting on their desk, didn’t they.

懐かしい、、みんな机の上に 1リットルのミルクティー置いてましたね

Everyone genuinely had a Lipton dangling off the hook on the side of their desk. (Japanese school desks have a hook on one side, officially for schoolbags.)

まじでみんな机の横のフックにリプトンぶら下げてたよな

Collecting the stickers off the top of the Lipton cartons was inexplicably a whole thing.

リプトンの紙パックの上に付いてるシール集めるの謎に流行ってたよな

Lipton is way too nostalgic. Me and my friends were always doodling on each other’s cartons.

リプトン懐かしすぎ友達とかってよくお互いのやつに落書きしてた

I was in high school in the late Heisei years and drank a ton of Lipton~ Milk tea and lemon tea. All you’re actually doing is sticking a straw in a carton, but you’re doing it while chatting with friends, so looking back it really was peak youth.

平成後期に高校生だったけど、リプトンめっちゃ飲んでた〜ミルクティーとレモンティー、普通にストローを紙パックにさして飲むだけなのに、友達と談笑しながら飲んでたから、めっちゃ青春だったなって。

Legit had a Lipton and an L-Chiki Buns on the walk home every single day. (L-Chiki is Lawson’s fried chicken; the Buns version comes tucked into a bread roll.)

ガチで毎日帰り道にリプトンとLチキバンズ食べてた

Mine was this.

私はこれ

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I was a Heisei high schooler but I was more of a Gogo-tii person than a Lipton person. (Kirin’s Gogo no Kōcha, literally “Afternoon Tea,” is the other giant of Japanese bottled tea.)

平成の高校生だったのにリプトンより午後ティー派だった

Three months before Heisei started — the very last of the Showa high schoolers — it was Kirin’s Gogo no Kocha lemon tea, and in the skinny can at that. (Showa is the era before Heisei; it ended in January 1989.)

平成になる3ヶ月前の昭和最後の高校生はキリンの午後ティ(レモンティー)しかも細缶。

Nostalgic. For me it was either Lipton or aloe.

懐かしい。リプトンかアロエだった。

Morinaga Aloe Drink, white grape flavor.

森永アロエドリンク　白ぶどう味

· Lipton · Chorus Water · Nectar (peach) — the three great student beverages (Chorus Water is a yogurt-flavored soda; Nectar is Fujiya’s famously thick peach juice.)

・リプトン・コーラスウォーター・ネクター(桃) 学生3大飲料

This tag team.

この2タッグ

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Obviously it’s Momo-sui. (Short for Momo no Tennensui, a peach-flavored water that was inescapable in the late 90s.)

そりゃもも水よ

That’s single-digit Heisei for sure. (Era years are counted from 1, so single-digit Heisei means roughly 1989 to 1997.)

絶対平成一桁でしょ

Did the design change?

デザイン変わった？

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I lived through Heisei and I can’t do tea, so I drank Van Houten. (The Dutch cocoa brand, sold here in the same straw-and-carton format.)

平成を生きてた私は紅茶苦手でバンホーテン飲んでた

Thiiiis.

こーれ

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HI-C Orange, or Kiriri, or Mystio, or Gomen-ne. (A run of 90s soft drinks, all long since discontinued.)

HI-Cオレンジかきりりかミスティオかごめんね。

It’s gotta be this.

これだろ

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Apparently it’s this.

これらしいよ

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Early Heisei, it was this.

平成初期はこれ

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Showa high schoolers had Meito lemon tea.

昭和の高校生は名糖レモンティー。

I said REIWA high schoolers! The replies are nothing but Heisei schoolgirls! Somebody tell me what Reiwa kids actually drink!! Are they on Van Houten cocoa!?!?!?

令和の高校生って言ってるだろ！リプに平成の女子高生しかいねーじゃねーか！令和の高校生事情教えろよ！！バンホーテンのココア飲んでる！？！？！？

There are still high schoolers drinking the 500ml and 1-liter Lipton cartons through a straw, you know.

今でも紙パックのリプトンの500や1リットルをストローで飲んでいる高校生いますね。

I got curious about this the other day and asked my nephew — sure enough, apparently they still go for the Lipton lemon tea and milk tea cartons.

先日わたしも気になって甥に聞いたのですがやはり紙パックのリプトンのレモンティー、ミルクティーを好むそうです。

Hello! If we’re talking tea, isn’t it Gong Cha these days? ☕ (A Taiwanese bubble tea chain that has spread widely across Japan.)

こんにちは！紅茶ならゴンチャじゃないすかね？☕

Gong Cha, no? idk though

ゴンチャじゃね？知らんけど

Gong Cha or Starbucks? I was a Gong Cha person, loved the brown sugar milk with tapioca — and getting told off by teachers for having tapioca in it is its own kind of nostalgia now ☺️

ゴンチャかスタバ？私はゴンチャ派でタピオカ入り黒糖ミルクが大好きだったけど、タピオカ入ってると先生に怒られてたのもまた懐かしい☺️

People keep saying they see kids with Starbucks or Gong Cha, but what I personally want to know is what they drink in the classroom…… do you drink Starbucks in a classroom? Really……

スタバとかゴンチャ飲んでるのを見るって意見もあるけど、個人的に知りたいのは学校の教室で飲んでるもので……教室で飲むのか？スタバを……

I do see Reiwa high schoolers carrying Gong Cha and Starbucks cups. Whether that’s an everyday thing or a treat for something, no idea…

令和の高校生、ゴンチャやスタバのカップ持ってる子をよく見る。日常的に飲んでいるのか何かのご褒美として飲んでいるのかは謎…

Serious answer: apparently it’s this.

ガチレスするとこれらしい

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Red Bull.

レッドブル

Feels like Mon-Ena is fairly popular. And NOPE, maybe? (Mon-Ena is Monster Energy; NOPE is a Suntory soda launched in 2026 and marketed squarely at guilty pleasure.)

割とモンエナが流行っている気がするあとノープとか？

Japanese clips long product names down to about four beats and then quietly retires the original. This thread alone has Gogo-tii for Gogo no Kōcha, Momo-sui for Momo no Tennensui, and Mon-Ena for Monster Energy. Nobody says the full names out loud.

Honestly not many kids are carrying anything on the way to and from school, so it might overwhelmingly be thermos bottles — though rooibos tea rather than barley tea. (Barley tea is the default household summer drink here, which is exactly why it now reads as slightly uncool.)

そもそも登下校時とかに何か持ってる子少ないので圧倒的水筒(でも麦茶じゃなくてルイボスティーとか)かもしれない

My take

The cartons are still lined up in every convenience store, standard stock, no fanfare. Which does rather suggest the Reiwa kids are drinking them too.

#Funny #Culture #Food

Source & translation note

Comments loosely translated for tone. Reactions collected from Togetter and X threads.

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