The time at which a flavor is released into a food system plays a pivotal role in the formulation’s quality and impact, yet this often is overlooked when a product’s flavor profile is being developed. Fresh ingredients leave a powerful impression in brewed tea because their volatile components, though fleeting in their impact, are vital in imparting the characteristic flavor profile to the hot tea drinker.

Flavor Dynamics’ new line of flavors for hot tea, Flavorcoat®, pays particular attention to flavor release timing in order to impart authentic, fresh profiles to flavored tea. Flavorcoat flavors rely on a new water-soluble and heat-triggered release system to deliver the products’ various flavor nuances at just the right moment during steeping. This creates a truer-flavored cup of tea that is delivered with better consistency, quality and taste than what is possible through traditional flavoring methods.

Protects Flavor Until the End Flavorcoat products were specifically created to be very “flavor friendly.” The line’s primary goal is to ensure that the original vision created by a food technologist for a tea ideation translates as seamlessly as possible to the final market product. Unlike other processes, Flavorcoat’s fresh fruit and spice flavors resist losing the light volatiles that are so vital to quality flavored tea. “For example,” explains Flavorcoat product manager Joseph Callari, “take our Natural Flavorcoat Lemon Ginger Flavor. By encapsulating the volatile elements in a matrix that is triggered in water at standard steeping temperature, the product’s light, peppery ginger and subtle green citrus notes are not released until the tea is actively steeping in the pot. Since these notes would normally erode relatively quickly, their release at this vital stage ensures that the tea’s taste characteristics will be shaped by these lighter elements and therefore the final product will impart a truer—and higher impact—flavor profile.”

Standing Strong

Flavorcoat products also have several advantages for flavoring tea beyond their time-release properties. The products are created through a unique multi-step flavor dehydration process that gives them physical characteristics that are ideal for tea production and shipping. The flavor particles are hard enough to stand up to the rigors of the tea-bag filling process and have been custom-designed to be the perfect size and bulk density for blending with cut tea. They resist both clumping (due to excessive moisture) and segregation (due to vibration during packaging and shipping). Further, they resist oxidation and degradation over an extended shelflife—so long, in fact, that they generally last longer than the teas with which they are packaged. Despite these physical characteristics, Flavorcoat products readily dissolve during standard steeping time and are consistent from batch to batch. Finally, Flavorcoat products mimic the flavor of fresh ingredients without being subject to the variations inherent to agricultural products.

The Flavorcoat line presently includes lemon, raspberry, cinnamon, chai, key lime, lemon ginger, bergamot, mango and plum flavors, with several additional products in development.

For more information:

Flavor Dynamics Inc., South Plainfield, N.J.
Colleen Roberts • 888-271-8424 • www.flavordynamics.com
customercare@flavordynamics.com