Monday, May 18, 2009

All Tea Gluten-Free???


Nope.

Ever get a gluten attack (glattack) from a cup of tea?
Believe it or not, some herbal teas contain barley.
One fellow tweep (i.e., twitterer) recently informed me that Yogi "tummy" tea contains barley with the barley info listed in tiny type separate from the ingredient list. Another tweep warned of some Teavana teas.

“In general, pure black, green, and herbal teas will be gluten free,” says Lani Thompson, founder of Clan Thompson (www.clanthompson.com) and gluten-free SmartLists. “All Bigelow teas except chamomile mango, cinnamon spice and blueberry harvest are gluten free. When gluten is present, it seems to be barley that's added to some teas (for instance Celestial Seasoning Almond Sunset or Canadian Vanilla Maple or English Toffee After Dinner or Ginseng Energy teas).”

So keep an eye out for the tiny type!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Celestial Seasonings Vanilla Hazelnut After Dinner Tea got me. Lucky my kids don't like it or they would have been glutened.

Unknown said...

why barly in tea?? anyone know?

erin rogers pickering said...

Wow - thanks for this. Do they need to put wheat, gluten or barley in everything??

elizabeth atkinson said...

Erin (as a nutritionist/food chemist?), would you know why barley would be added? do you think they need gluten in general for the herbal mixture to stay blended?

Anonymous said...

Don't they use the barley to give it a richer flavor? Seems like some coffee substitutes use roasted grains.

Unknown said...

Great picture (!)
je, je

Jared and Beth said...

There is another issue to consider with tea. If it lists barley on the ingedients, that's a no brainer. I have found an issue with tea bags that are glued verses tea bags that are stapled. What I've been told is that the glue may contain a gluten source. Since it's not an ingredient, it wouldn't be listed and you won't get warned.