Tea Flavour
Tea flavour is a flavouring that reproduces the aroma of Camellia sinensis in a form that can be dosed into a food or a drink, and in trade it covers both extract based preparations made from tea leaf and compounded flavourings built from individual aroma chemicals. Directions include green tea, black tea, oolong, matcha, jasmine, earl grey and milk tea, and the differences between them arise from processing of the leaf rather than from the plant.
The aroma of tea is largely created after picking. Green tea is heated early to inactivate polyphenol oxidase, so it retains the grassy and marine notes of cis 3 hexenol, dimethyl sulphide and the leaf aldehydes. Black tea is allowed to oxidise, during which carotenoids and unsaturated fatty acids break down and glycosidically bound precursors release linalool, geraniol, methyl salicylate and beta ionone, giving the floral and sweet character. Roasted and oolong directions add pyrazines and furans from firing, while jasmine tea takes its aroma from scenting with living flowers, dominated by benzyl acetate, linalool and indole. The taste of tea, its astringency and body, comes from catechins and caffeine and is not carried by the aroma fraction at all.
Four formats exist: liquid concentrate, emulsion, spray dried powder and encapsulated powder. Tea aroma is unusually fragile, being rich in low boiling alcohols and aldehydes that oxidise readily, so it is packed cold under nitrogen and dosed as late in a process as the application allows.
We source bulk Tea Flavour from top China manufacturers for our partners. The manufacturer is in Guangdong. A smaller requirement can ship in a combined container with other ingredients.
Please send the grade you need, the volume and your destination port, and we will come back with a solution and a price.
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- Function
- Flavours and Aromas
Specifications
| Item | Specification |
|---|---|
| Appearance | Clear pale yellow to amber liquid, emulsion, or free flowing powder |
| Odour and Taste | Characteristic of the declared tea direction, no stewed, oxidised or musty note |
| Identification | Gas chromatography profile conforms to retained reference |
| Specific Gravity at 25 C | Within declared range for grade |
| Total Solids, extract grades | Not less than 40% as declared |
| Total Polyphenols, extract grades | As declared per grade |
| Caffeine | As declared per grade |
| Moisture, powder grades | Not more than 5.0% |
| Solubility | Clear or evenly dispersed at declared dosage in the specified carrier |
| Lead | Not more than 1.0 mg/kg |
| Arsenic | Not more than 0.5 mg/kg |
| Total Plate Count | Not more than 1,000 cfu/g |
| Yeast and Mould | Not more than 50 cfu/g |
| Salmonella | Absent in 25 g |
Common Markets Grades
Grades separate on origin and on what fraction of the tea is carried. An aroma only grade, whether a natural distillate or a compounded flavour, delivers smell without astringency or colour, and is used where the finished product already contains brewed tea or where colour would be a problem. An extract bearing grade carries catechins, caffeine and colour as well as aroma, and contributes body and bitterness, which is either an advantage or a limitation depending on the application. Decaffeinated extract grades are traded separately.
Format grades cover water soluble liquids for beverages, oil soluble grades for fat systems and confectionery, emulsions for cloudy drinks, and spray dried and encapsulated powders for dry mixes and bakery, the last specified where the flavour must survive baking or extrusion. Declaration grades run from natural, built on tea distillate and natural aroma chemicals, through natural flavouring with other natural flavourings, to artificial. Milk tea and flavoured tea directions are compounded on a tea base with dairy, vanilla or bergamot components blended in, and are quoted as complete profiles rather than as tea alone.
Applications
- Ready to drink iced tea, restoring the aroma lost during pasteurisation and hot filling
- Milk tea and bubble tea concentrates and powders
- Powdered instant tea mixes and sachets
- Matcha and green tea flavoured confectionery, chocolate and ice cream
- Bakery products, cakes, biscuits and fillings in tea directions, using an encapsulated grade
- Dairy and yoghurt in green tea, black tea and jasmine varieties
- Alcoholic drinks and mixers, including tea flavoured spirits and liqueurs
- Chewing gum and hard candy, where a heat stable grade is required
- Savoury applications such as tea smoked profiles in meat and marinades
- Flavoured tea blends themselves, where a spray dried flavouring is applied to the dry leaf
China Manufacturers of Tea Flavour
Top Tea Flavour manufacturers in China.
Company names and logos are the property of the manufacturers themselves. They are listed here because our own directory records them as producing this ingredient. A listing is not an endorsement by them, and we do not represent them or speak on their behalf.
Regulatory Status
Tea flavour is a flavouring rather than a food additive and carries no E number. In the European Union each flavouring substance in the formula must appear on the Union list of flavouring substances authorised for use in and on foods, and the flavourings framework determines when a preparation may be described as a natural flavouring and when it may be called natural tea flavouring, the latter requiring that the flavouring component come almost entirely from tea. Tea extract used for its own sake is a food ingredient rather than a flavouring.
In the United States the individual flavouring substances hold FEMA GRAS status or appear among the synthetic flavouring substances permitted for food use, and 21 CFR 101.22 governs the natural and artificial labelling of the finished product. Two further points arise in this class. Caffeine carried by an extract bearing grade is subject to labelling requirements in the European Union above defined thresholds in drinks not normally associated with it, and green tea catechin extracts have been the subject of safety assessment in relation to concentrated preparations, which is relevant where an extract is dosed at a level beyond ordinary flavouring use. Pesticide residue limits apply to the incoming leaf and are a recurring import control for tea. Codex covers the class through its guidelines for the use of flavourings and its standards for contaminants.
Manufacturing Process
Where the flavouring is extract based, dried tea leaf is extracted with hot water in a counter current or batch system at a temperature and time chosen for the direction wanted, a shorter cooler extraction preserving the delicate green notes and a longer hotter one drawing more catechin and body. The extract is separated from the spent leaf, clarified by centrifugation and filtration, and concentrated under vacuum at low temperature. The aroma stripped during that evaporation is captured in a condenser and rectified into a tea distillate many times more concentrated than the brew, and this distillate is the most valuable natural component available to the flavourist. Some producers recover aroma separately by spinning cone column stripping before concentration, which is gentler still.
Compounding then follows on a formula. The distillate is blended with linalool, geraniol, methyl salicylate, cis 3 hexenol, ionones, pyrazines and other aroma chemicals appropriate to the direction, with the most powerful materials pre diluted, and the batch is agitated, held so the flavours come together, filtered and standardised against a retained reference by sensory panel supported by gas chromatography. Emulsion grades are homogenised at high pressure with gum acacia or modified starch. Powder grades are emulsified into a carrier slurry and spray dried, or fat coated in a fluid bed for a heat stable encapsulated form, then sieved and packed under nitrogen.
