What "natural flavouring" actually means
It sounds wholesome. It isn't what you think.
Is this your brand on Milled? Claim it.
Most people think natural flavouring means a real plant or a real fruit. It almost never does. Here is what it actually means.
The rules say natural flavouring just has to start from something in nature. A plant, an animal, anything. That's the only rule. What happens to it after that doesn't have to be on the label.
Here's what actually happens. Scientists take that source ingredient into a lab and use chemicals to pull out the molecules that create a certain taste. Then they mix those molecules with other ingredients to make it stable and cheap to use at scale.
That final mixture is what goes into your tea bag. And here's the part most people don't know: the actual flavour is usually only 10 to 20 percent of that mixture. The other 80 to 90 percent is fillers and solvents you've never heard of. None of that has to show up on the label. It all hides under two words: natural flavouring.
One natural flavouring listing can legally cover over 100 individual chemicals.
There's one more thing worth knowing. The difference between natural and artificial flavouring is almost nothing. A vanilla molecule made from a real vanilla bean and a vanilla molecule made in a lab are chemically the same thing. Natural just means where it started, not what it became. A natural strawberry flavour can legally come from fermented wood pulp. As long as it started somewhere in nature, it counts.
This is totally legal. And it's how most flavoured teas are made.
None of this is meant to scare you. Natural flavouring exists for a reason. Most bagged tea uses low quality leaves/dust that don't have a lot of flavour left in them, and flavouring fixes that problem cheaply. It's practical.
We just made a different choice. We source the highest quality ingredients from the best growing regions we can find, which means the flavour is already there. Nothing needs to be added. That message has seemingly resonated with a lot of you and we are so grateful for all of your support.
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I hope you all like this newsletter style content. If you ever have a question about this or our products in general, just hit reply and ask. I read every one.
Sean
CEO Firebelly Tea
