In recent months, I have been trying out different herbal teas and have been disappointed to find that some supermarket herbal teas contain artificial flavourings.
Look out for teas that have have added flavouring be they black, green, fruit or herbal teas. What is flavour? All flavours are chemical compounds. Some teas are a blend of natural and artificial flavours. Make sure you read the labels carefully.
Twinings has ‘natural flavouring’ and ‘flavouring’ listed on most of their teas – these are the ingredients from their Peach & Passionfruit Infuse range; White Hibiscus, Rosehips, Peach Flavouring (14%), Apple Pieces, Passionfruit Flavouring (7%), Hibiscus, Roasted Chicory Root, Orange Peel, Natural Flavouring. There are three ‘flavours’ in this tea, so not a pure and natural tea.
Healtheries use “nature identical” flavourings, which are okay, but anything that says “flavours” or “flavouring” in the ingredients list on the box means it is artificial. A lot of Healtheries tea have ‘natural flavour’ listed as an ingredient but it doesn’t say what the natural flavour is, adding up the percentages it makes up 5% of the teas I checked.
Tea Total and Pro Life are totally natural, no flavours added. T2, Dilmah and Red Seal are also flavour free – although do check the labels yourself in case something has snuck in since I checked.
Pukka and Puraty are both organic – no flavours in sight.
There are also some lovely tea shops and tea cafe’s in Auckland and perhaps the rest of the country too (let me know if you have a local in your area). Wendyl did some exploring, this is what she found …
For beautiful natural teas there’s a great shop in Mt Eden called Chapter, which sells romance novels and a huge range of exotic and not so exotic teas – which I think is a great combination.
Almost all of their teas are also available online and they ship through out New Zealand so you don’t have to go there to enjoy a cup.
Some of my favourites are Ice Tea which is peppermint and rose, and Caramel Tea which has lumps of caramel in it! Also Earl Grey Rose which is gorgeous and my favourite Otago Summer Fruits which has bits of dried fruit and tastes amazing.
“Where listed, the flavour in all our teas is food grade and is made of all-natural molecules that are found in nature, made in an artificial process. We use a higher concentration of these compounds than what is found in nature to give an intense flavour and to maintain seasonal consistencies amongst the teas. If a flavour contains or is made up of any allergen or of any other ingredient (like sugar for example) this will clearly be displayed in the ingredient listing.”
One of my favourite hot drinks is Chai tea or Chai latte. Here’s some information from Wendyl regarding Lipton Chai Latte.
Chai is a word which has become synonymous with a milky spiced tea that you can find on the streets of India. There it is referred to as “masala chai” and involves heating tea with spices and hot milk. Traditional masala chai has no resemblance to the chai mixes we get in cafes here. When I opened my emails I was interested to find a a message from a reader: “I was wondering if you could look into Lipton Chai Latte, I’d like to know if it contains any caffeine. It says on the packaging that it has instant tea powder, what is this?”
Lipton Chai Latte
– $6.68 for 18g or 8 serves
Ingredients:
Milk solids (50 per cent)
When you dehydrate milk you get proteins and carbohydrates left behind – milk solids.
Sugar
This drink is very high in sugar. In India they would usually use jaggery which is a form of palm sugar. For each cup of this drink you will consume 16.6g of sugar, which is about four teaspoons.
Vegetable fat
This product advertises itself as 98 per cent fat free, so there’s not too much fat in here. You’ll get 3.4g total fat and 2.7g saturated fat in each cup.
Glucose Syrup (from wheat)
This is more sugar in a liquid form taken from wheat.
Flavours (contain milk, soybean derivatives)
These will be artificial flavours as there is nothing on the packet stating they aren’t. These will be imitating the natural spicy flavour found in chai, such as the cardamom, ginger and cinnamon they advertise on the packet. “It combines tea with exotic spice flavours such as cinnamon, cardamom and ginger …” it says.
Instant tea powder (3 per cent)
This is usually used in the US to make iced tea and recently a new product has been on our shelves called Nestea Ice Tea Lemon/Peach Powder, which you can mix to make iced tea. Instant tea is produced from black tea by extracting the liquid, which is then made into a powder.
It will still contain caffeine although there’s nothing on the label to tell us this.
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