More specifically, does it have real tea (i.e. leaves of the tea plant) in it with just some fruit additives? Are the additives made of real fruit or just chemical additives for flavour? Or is it entirely made of some dried fruit/petals etc?
Thanks
Does anyone know the ingredients of fruit tea? I mean the tea bags that we find in Migros, nothing premium.
If there's not a list of contents on the side of the box, then the answer is probably any or all of the above. Have you ripped open a tea bag to investigate? If so, you might find a combination of tea leaves, fruit bits, petals, and UO's (unidentified objects) as for the additives, that's going to be harder to determine.
Depends on the brand, the fruit and the type of tea.
Fruit tea might be just "normal" pure black tea with chemical taste (in some brands visible on little white balls). It might also be normal tea that has been "bathed" on the said fruit juice or has tiny little pieces of the dried fruit to give the natural flavour. Certain fruit teas are made from the leaves of the tree/bush/plant itself with or without artificial/natural flavour added.
It is very difficult to know for certain even with a chemist degree, since "natural flavoured" doesn't really explain what gives the flavour.
why you ask?
The latter ... there is even a legal definition for 'herbal tea' and 'fruit tea' (in German), i.e. such teas consist of plant parts (usually dried) or extracts of plant parts:
Kräutertee und Früchtetee sind Pflanzenteile oder deren Extrakte, die zusammen mit Wasser angebrüht ein aromatisches Getränk ergeben, das der Erfrischung oder dem Genuss dient.
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/817_022_111/a78.html
Martin
OK, why I ask is because I used to drink loads of green tea thinking, if it has health benefits I gain something, else I lose nothing, I used to like it moderately. Then when I came to CH I found fruit tea readily available in shops, pretty inexpensive, so I switched to fruit teas.
Yesterday a Swiss friend who works in a restaurant told me it is all artificial, (which I didn't believe wholly because at least the base has to be normal tea or something neutral, I think).
Obviously, I can't read German, else I would not have asked this. I can't also scan and google-translate it easily like I do for other documents.
In particular, the brand I use from Migros is "Tea Time"; it comes in numerous fruity flavours. OK, I read "Aromatisierte Fruchteemischung mit Orangeschmack" written on the pack.
That is the problem. It simply says "Flavoured fruit-mixture tea with orange taste"
How the taste is made is difficult to know. It might or might not be artificial (or the nastiest of the grey zones, being artifically flavoured dried orange tree leaves, just to stay on the fruit tea definition). One of the ways to know is calling the hot-line from the brand (a lot of companies have one printed on the package) and ask. They won't tell you the recepie but will probably tell you if it is artificially or naturally flavoured tea.
OK, let me ask this way: can anyone recommend a brand of fruit tea easily locatable on the Migros shelves that is made of plants/fruits only (I can accept a small amount of preservative etc., I can see there is nothing that is 100% natural, I just want something natural within reason). To call an artificially flavoured product "fruit tea" is cheating IMO
I am not a fan of fruit tea (also because of these reasons) but I can advise you to check out BIO stores. Though I am against the whole BIO thing (too long story to tell here) their teas are usually quite good and very "natural". Price is only slightly more than the other regular teas.
Fruit tea generally contains hibiscus (Hibiskusblüte), apple (Apfel) and rose hip (Hagebutte).
Rose hip is definitely the major part in fruit teas.
I drink one of those available at Migros and like it very much.
And it's natural (not artificial).
If it contains black tea it's labelled: Aromatisierter Schwarztee. If you read something like Hagebutte then it's natural
Frankly I am not a fan of fruit tea either, and I am a very lazy shopper, I would like to use as little time and thinking into this matter, and finding a BIO shop isn't an option for me.
Surely there must be someone here who buys fruit-based fruit tea from Migros? Just to be doubly sure, can anyone name a brand sold in Migors/COOP that they are confident contains mostly natural stuff?
As just said before: I buy the Bio Fruit tea from Migros.
It's perfectly fine, healthy as much as Bio as you can get at Migros.
I can really recommend it.
If you still have hesitations and don't want to go to a bio shop: find the nearest Dropa Drogerie and buy the fruit tea there. It's a tad bit better than Migros/Coop. And a bit more natural.
A product test in 2004 showed that out of 15 fruit teas (amonst others Tea Time) none contained any hazardous substances (like pericarp treatment agents). A few fruit teas contained "natural aromas" but if this is the case it should be written on the package. For example Tea Time "Fruchtschalentee" does not contain any additives, "Fantastic Orange" does.
Yogi Tea. Available from Migros, all natural herbal tea so no actual 'tea leaves' (they may do a black tea variety but I stick to the herbal). They are more spicey than fruity which is why I love them. The ginger hibiscus is my fave as well as the mexican chilli - just a hint of a kick. I think they need a squirt of honey to bring out the flavor. They have a great website which goes into all the ingredients so you can look there instead of translating- well you would need to translate the name but I think its easy to figure out.
Okay, so happens I have some of the lipton pyramid bags, it's "Karibik" flavor - papaya and hibiscus.
The ingredient list is: Hagebutte (rose hips), orangenblätter (orange leaves), zitronengras (lemon grass), orangenschalen (orange peels), süssholz (sweet wood?), aroma (?), hibiskus (hibiscus 1.6%) and papaya (1.3%).
Not so bad I think.
I also have some packages of fruit teas I picked up at Aldi. One is Strawberry - Raspberry with vitamins added.
Ingredient list for Strawberry - Raspberry: hibiskus (hibiscus), äpfel (apple), süsse brombeerblätter (sweet blackberry leaves), orangeschalen (orange peel), aroma (?), multivitaminmischung (multivitamin mix containing sugar, maltodestrin, vitamin c, niacin, vitamin e, pantothensäure, vitamin b6, vitamin b2, vitamin b1, folsäure, biotin, vitamin b12), hagenbutten (rose hips), rote bete (red beets?), citronensäure (citric acid?).
Also, not terrible I think.
So, each of those on it's own seems to be just the fruity stuff, no actual "tea" leaves in it. (Of course, being a tea fiend I usually have 1 bag of one of those along with 3 black tea bags in to brew for 1L of iced tea.)
The lipton ones I've seen at Coop and Manor, they don't seem to carry them at Migros and I don't shop there often so I can't give any details about their teas.
Süssholz (or Süßholz in German German) is Glycyrrhiza root in English. Think liquorice / licorice in its crudest form.
Rose hip, hibiscus and apple are certainly the most common ingredients in most 'fruit teas' (more correctly 'fruit infusions'). I don't think any of these actually contain any tea.
All fruit teas are tisanes/herbal teas. That's literally what the definition of them is. If you want some organic or at least some none-artificial ones, there are loads of very nice tea shops all around.
I know the ZH area, so here's some nice places:
Tea Geschwendner (in German)
Teehaus Winterthur (in German)
Schwarzenbach (in German)
There exist more, but these are 3 nice ones with helpful staff (that can eek out some English).
Thanks Captain! No wonder I like that one so much.
Licorice tea is great for an upset stomach, too.
In Bern, at least, you can get Berner Rose tea, made from the Berner Rose apple, cinnamon and some other herbs and spices. It's really very nice.
I tried it, and it is awesome, I find no reason to try any other brand now
BTW they have a nice marketing blurb on how to choose the right tea for you.
Thanks for all the suggestions, BTW.