T-Bird Range
client: Unilever

Looking to promote its Lipton tea in a form to challenge 'coffee culture', Unilever charged Design Stream with creating a process that would brew leaf tea quickly and revolutionise out-of-home tea drinking.

The result was the T-Bird Tea Brewing Machine and the team has gone on to develop a family of machines jointly with Unilever to capitalise on this burgeoning market. All stages of development were carried out by Design Stream: from building prototypes to gain customer feedback and demonstrate feasibility; to creating the high speed brewing process; and designing and engineering a patentable machine.

This joint collaboration enabled Unilever to maintain complete ownership of the machine and flexibility to manufacture wherever it chose. T-bird has been launched under the Lipton Ch'a brand in the UK, France, China, Japan and the UAE, with further sites planned.

Take a look at www.chatea.co.uk for more information.