Let us help you understand what tea flavorings are.

Tea-flavored fragrances constitute a very important and technically challenging category within the food, beverage, and daily chemical fragrance industries. Their characteristics are very distinct and can be understood from the following core dimensions:

High degree of naturalness and freshness: The core of high-quality tea fragrance is to simulate the fresh, elegant, and slightly astringent plant aroma released during tea brewing, rather than the roasted flavor of dry tea leaves. It needs to create a vivid sense of the "moment of brewing."

Complexity and layering of aroma: Natural tea aroma is composed of hundreds of volatile compounds, including:

• Green/grassy notes: From hexenol, hexenal, etc. (constituting the fresh green leaf aroma).
• Floral notes: From linalool, geraniol, etc. (constituting the sweet floral aroma of black and oolong teas).
• Roasted/nutty notes: From pyrazines, pyrroles (constituting the roasted green tea and black tea aromas).
• Fermented/mellow notes: From esters, lactones (constituting the ripe fruit and aged aroma of oolong and Pu-erh teas).
• Astringency/body: Simulating the slight astringency brought about by tea polyphenols, which often requires the assistance of non-volatile components.

Extreme instability and variability: Tea aroma components are very delicate and easily degrade or change flavor due to light, heat, and oxygen (producing a "stale" or "off-flavor"), therefore requiring extremely high demands on fragrance stability technology and application environment.

High dilution use: Tea fragrances are usually highly concentrated, with very small amounts added to the final product (0.01%-0.1%), requiring precise formulation.

Carrier and solvent are crucial: Commonly used solvents (such as alcohol, propylene glycol, vegetable oil) or carriers (such as maltodextrin, emulsification systems) have a huge impact on the release and stability of the aroma. For example, water-soluble fragrances are used in beverages, while oil-soluble ones are used in baking.

Balance of "top notes" and "lingering notes": Tea beverages emphasize the refreshing sensation upon entry (top notes) and the lingering aftertaste (lingering notes). Fragrances require careful design of their evaporation curve to mimic this process. Natural tea aromas are short-lived, so fixatives such as woody and musky notes are often used to prolong the aftertaste, but caution is needed to avoid compromising the freshness.

Synergy and antagonism with the product matrix: In application, tea fragrances are highly susceptible to the influence of other ingredients in the product:

• pH: Tea aroma behaves very differently in acidic (e.g., lemon tea) or neutral environments (e.g., milk tea).
• Sugar content: Sugar can suppress bitterness, enhance richness, and alter aroma perception.
• Dairy products: The fat in milk "coats" aroma molecules, significantly weakening the tea aroma. Therefore, milk tea-specific fragrances need enhanced aroma intensity and penetration.
• Temperature: Must be heat-resistant (for hot drinks, baking) or cold-resistant (for frozen products).

Green Tea Fragrance: Emphasizes "freshness, greenness, and roasted bean aroma." The key is to capture the floral aromas such as green leaf alcohol and ionone produced during the "kill-green" process. Japanese matcha fragrances also emphasize a seaweed-like "umami" and slight bitterness.

Black Tea Fragrance: Emphasizes "sweetness, honey aroma, fruity aroma, and fermentation notes." It simulates the aromas produced by theaflavins and thearubigins during the "withering and fermentation" process, such as phenethyl alcohol (rose aroma) and phenylacetaldehyde (hyacinth aroma).

Oolong Tea Fragrance (especially Tieguanyin and Phoenix Dancong): The most complex, combining the freshness of green tea and the sweetness of black tea, with unique roasted notes, orchid aroma, and ripe fruit aromas (such as peach and apricot). This is the most technically challenging.

Jasmine Tea Fragrance: Belongs to "scented tea," the core of which is the perfect fusion of "tea base aroma + fresh jasmine aroma," requiring the jasmine aroma to be vibrant and lively, not a dull, soapy scent.

Milk Tea/Flavored Tea Fragrance: These are already compound fragrances, such as Earl Grey tea (with bergamot citrus aroma), peach oolong, and cheese foam tea. The characteristic is the layering of fruity, milky, and caramel aromas on a tea base, pursuing flavor fusion and innovation.

From "Simulation" to "Enhancement": Early efforts focused on highly replicating the aroma of premium teas, but now the trend is towards creating "idealized" tea aromas—more full-bodied, more stable, and more distinctive.