What are Natural Flavors in Tea?
When reading the list of ingredients for a particular tea blend, you may have stumbled across the words "natural flavorings." But what, exactly, do these terms mean?
Natural flavorings, like artificial flavorings, are used to (as the name suggests) add flavor to tea. Unlike artificial flavorings, which may be entirely synthetic, natural flavorings are made from real ingredients that exist in nature. They're similar to essential oils in that they're a more concentrated distillation of the flavor of a particular fruit or herb. Natural flavorings may sometimes be a composite of several different ingredients used to achieve a desired flavor—for instance, multiple fruits or spices.
We don't carry any teas with artificial flavorings at ArtfulTea. The teas with natural flavorings that we do carry are mainly sourced from countries within the EU, which has much stricter requirements than the US when it comes to food-grade natural flavorings. We personally taste-test and select every tea in our collection—each blend is chosen for its superior flavor and quality.
For customers who would rather avoid natural flavorings entirely, all of the teas in our "no added flavorings" collection contain no natural flavorings.
