I'd expect nothing less.

I love herbal tea. In fact, one of the first appliances I bought for college was an electric kettle so that I could make it in the comfort of my own dorm. It also proved handy for making Cup Ramen, but I digress.

Since my boyfriend and I share good food so often, I wanted to make sure that he could drink some of my favorite brews. I almost exclusively drink Celestial Seasonings because of their wide selection of herbal teas that are just downright yummy. I horde their CandyCane Lane flavor so that it lasts me until the next holiday season and guzzle down Bengal Spice to no end. On top of their excellent teas, they also have an excellent website.

They list the ingredients on the box, however they still use the dubious “natural flavors” term which kind of sets me and my boyfriend on edge. After looking at their site, the first thing I found is that they state quite clearly which flavors are gluten-free. This is a good start and I was happy to find that my favorite flavors were safe in that respect. I jumped over to the FAQ page and found that some of the teas contain soy lecithin, however they are “calling out on both our packaging and on our website those teas that contain soy lecithin”. Also a good sign, since my favorites didn’t contain those either. The only thing left was the “natural flavors”, which surprisingly they had an answer for.

“Several of our teas are enhanced with natural flavors. The natural flavors we use at Celestial Seasonings are concentrated substances of some of the same fruits, herbs, and spices used in our teas, such as cinnamon, citrus peel, oranges, almonds, mint or apples. Celestial Seasonings flavors have never contained monosodium glutamate (MSG).
If you have allergies or sensitivities to certain flavors, we recommend you avoid all products with added flavorings.”

Well, that seems pretty straight forward. My boyfriend is still a little suspicious and says that he won’t drink the flavors that say “natural ingredients” during stressful times because reactions seem to make him even more stressed, however I think that he will eventually try some.

Coincidentally, when I was looking through the FAQ page I found that they sometimes add citric acid to the tea, which is derived from corn. I’m a little surprised at this because I thought that citric acid was primarily found in citrus fruit (makes sense, doesn’t it?). I guess not! Luckily, my flavors don’t use any citric acid, but I’m still glad that I found this. I like that it’s up on the website, but I would never have expected corn to be hiding in there. But then again, corn hides everywhere these days. But that’s another post.

http://www.celestialseasonings.com/about/faqs.html

(image taken from the Celestial Seasonings website)