What's in Your Tea?

I've been meaning to blog about this so here it finally is. What's in your tea? Specifically, what's in your major brand herbal tea? Besides the overly processed dried herbs (open a bag and notice how pulverized they are), there's other stuff going on that you might not be aware of so let's talk about it.

Have you noticed an ingredient on your box of tea called "natural flavors"? Some brand names use this as an ingredient. I reached out to a couple of major brands to find out what they actually mean when they put that under ingredients. One responded that it was proprietary information and the other just never responded back. So, let's talk about proprietary information... which is basically a cover-up for what "natural flavors" are... they're chemicals and oils derived from natural ingredients in order to give back the flavor of the tea that's lost in the processing or to make that flavor pop more. Though this use does shorten the shelf life of those tea blends.

Which moves us to the next subject about store bought or large name brand teas - shelf life. Look at the expiration dates on the boxes of your teas. My guess is that it's a couple of years out from when you bought it. They have to use methods to help preserve the tea such as using oxygen barrier packaging which may or may not use chemicals to seal them that get released into your tea via the boiling water. Another method they may use is something called "nitrogen flushing" which basically uses nitrogen gas to remove the oxygen. Interestingly enough, most herbs should be used within 6-12 months if you're making fresh herbal teas... yet, their teas last years...

So, the tea gets processed into tiny pieces, if it's a flavored tea, they add back flavor with flavoring oils then they use some sort of process to keep the herbs from oxidizing. Okay. Now, it's off to the warehouse to sit for how long? Not sure but then it goes from there to a distributor then to a store's warehouse and finally to the shelves of the store you buy it from. Then, you drink it. Tastes pretty good, yes? Does it?

Here's the challenge for you, and I would love to hear back your findings, buy your name brand tea preferably a simple one with maybe just peppermint. Then, make yourself a cup of peppermint tea from dried peppermint (or fresh if possible). Taste them side-by-side... let me know if you can tell a difference. I look forward to hearing your outcomes!

One last tidbit, those fancy tea brands that you think are better than, say Lipton? Some of them are actually owned by Lipton. Do your research and put better products in your bodies!