Teavana contains Artificial Colour and Flavors

A lot of popular loose leaf tea companies have artificial flavors and colors in their teas. David’s tea uses artificial flavors in their teas. I honestly believe Teavana has always used artificial flavors in their tea however, until recently, they just listed artificial flavoring as just flavoring.

I’m not a fan of Teavana but it isn’t because of their use of flavoring, because most tea companies that do not exclusively sell pure teas utilize flavoring of some sort.

I guess it would depend upon one’s definition of Natural Flavoring versus Artificial Flavoring. If by Artificial Flavoring you mean the oils that are used to flavor the tea leaves and by Natural Flavoring you mean various herbs, spices and fruit bits (as well as other additions that are not flavoring oils), I can tell you from my own experience as a tea blender/artisan that the oils flavor a tea much more effectively than fruit bits.

That is to say that if you took a portion of Ceylon Tea and divided it in half, flavoring one have of the Ceylon with a “pear flavoring oil” and flavoring the other half with dried pear bits, the portion of tea that had been flavored with the oil will taste much more like pear than the half that was flavored only with dried fruit. The dried fruit adds relatively little flavor to the cup and is used mostly for aesthetic purposes than to enhance the flavor of a tea.

Furthermore, a majority of Teavana teas contain added flavor – specifically “artificial flavoring.” If their tea is so high end, why would they be adding ingredients produced by fractional distillation and chemical manipulation of various chemicals.

Some countries have banned the addition of “Artificial Flavourings” in food products.

A majority of Teavana’s teas I would say could be categorized as ‘flavored’. While I can see the trend of companies moving toward things such as organic natural flavorings, “artificial” flavorings are not necessarily bad or bad for you. IMO Teavana is more mid-range, but overpriced. They’re based to call to the uninformed tea consumer.

Really, fractional distillation and ‘chemical manipulation’ aren’t even a big deal when you’re talking about chemical processes. Any properly trained chemistry student can distill caffeine out of a tea bag using the right resources and procedures, and it’s still chemically called an organic process. It’s easy, you can do it in about an hour or two. While it’s a substance that even in low dosages can seriously alter your system, it’s naturally occurring. Conversely the processes to remove caffeine in tea involve more processing. Some artificial additives are usually beneficial for human health, like iodine in iodized salt, and vitamin D in milk.
Some things available commercially are distilled, but are also naturally occurring- such as vinegar (acetic acid). The commercial product found is something like 0.003% or less. Glacial Acetic Acid is 100% and dangerously acidic, but isn’t available to the common consumer. It can be produced by fermentation and distilled, or carbonylation of methanol. Which one sounds more chemical-y to you?

On the other hand artificial flavorings are MUCH more rigorously tested than ‘natural flavorings’ for impurities and health safety and is regulated. If it seriously bothers you, you don’t have to drink it. Usually in THAT low of a dose it’ll only start to bother your system if you start drinking gallons of it every hour. Like those studies of diet soda on mice- it’s only applicable to humans in ridiculous quantities, and if you’re imbibing THAT much of a substance, you have other problems most likely, like never being able to leave the toilet because you’re taking in so much liquid.

There are many companies that cater to people that have preferences toward natural and organic flavorings, or just straight tea. I’m sure someone can recommend a few. =)

This thread is a little funny to me. Sorry if I’m trolling you too much. Obviously I know which side I’m on. Usually people are more worried about the pesticide levels in Teavana tea than the use of flavorings.
On whether you need flavorings- it’s like asking if you would like butter or salted butter. It’s a matter or taste and preference. On the side of natural vs artificially flavorings- it’s like asking if you would prefer the filtered water, or the purified water. The difference to your body is minimal. But the processes are different and the taste can vary.

I have bigger concerns with the use of dyes like red dye, blue dye, etc. Not sure about Teavana but I see that in some of David’s Teas (my favorite brand; I’m a fun flavor junkie) and as much as some of the flavors sound tempting, I avoid those with food dyes.

I don’t have a problem with artificial flavourings, just with the fact that there’s very rarely a list of what goes into the flavouring, which can be dangerous for people with allergies.

I prefer to know what I’m consuming and I prefer to consume minimally processed stuff, but I don’t think that natural automatically means better.

I prefer straight teas, the pure taste of a good tea is very appealing to me.
The only tea that I have with any other added ingredient is genmaicha.
I would never buy a tea with pieces of fruit and the like in it, but that’s just my taste.