Acetone odor in peach tea
I recently ordered peach tea from a large reputable tea wholesaler and when I opened the package it smelled like nail polish! It tasted and smelled OK after steeping but the chemical fumes cannot be normal! Any idea what would cause this bad smell?
I’m just guessing here, but It could be the flavoring oil that was used. The flavoring oils are made using extracts of flavors – flavors that are achieved using alcohol. Sometimes these flavoring oils have a slight “alcohol” or chemical smell to them.
Just about every flavored tea will be flavored using flavoring oil. This is where the real flavor comes from – even if a tea company adds things such as fruit bits, the fruit bits do not really affect the flavor of the tea and are added for the sake of appearance more than anything else.
I had a peach rooibos from a reputable company, and the odor was a lot like windex. Peach seems to be a hit or miss for me.
As LiberTeas said, the flavored oils used to flavor teas have an alcohol base. The alcohol is used to carry the flavoring throughout the tea as it evaporates. You probably got some tea from a batch that had been very recently blended or sealed in too air-proof a container to allow the alcohol to completely evaporate. If you leave your package open for a few hours, the alcohol should evaporate properly. Brewing it will cause it to evaporate too. It’s a very, very small amount and shouldn’t hurt you.
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