Wendyl wants to know: Close....but where's the mango

The flavours are natural, but they're not all the real thing.

You'll have to excuse my obsession with herbal teas and artificial flavouring. Many of the products on your supermarket shelves may indeed have green tea or black tea as their base, but flavours such as rose, strawberry and vanilla are achieved by adding artificial flavour.

It seems to me the ultimate in wrongdoing to offer a herbal tea which buyers will think is good for them and full of herbal benefits, but with which they'll be consuming unnatural synthetics.

This new range gave me hope in the tea aisle, where I am often to be found scanning ingredients labels in the search for a real herbal tea.

Hibiscus

This is hibiscus flower which is in most fruit teas. It provides a tart, cranberry-like taste, has a lovely colour and for producers is a cheap ingredient to make up the volume of the teabag.

It could also be good for you. I found a 2008 study which said three cups of hibiscus tea can lower blood pressure.

Orange leaves (16 per cent)

These will be in here for flavour.

Who knew you could use citrus leaves in tea? They have a lot of flavour in them.

Natural strawberry flavouring with other natural flavourings (10 per cent)

I am delighted to see natural strawberry flavouring here as it is rare in teas and foods in general. But I'm not so pleased to see "other natural flavourings". This is what is called nature-identical flavouring, and will be in here to mimic the taste of strawberry. Nature-identical means there are no artificial flavours in this product. But it also means the strawberry flavour is also made up of a substance which has the identical chemical structure as the natural product.

No one will ever know what goes into these flavourings as they are trade secrets. But they are cheaper than the real thing, and this means the tea can be made at a cheaper price.

Natural flavourings (10 per cent)

This will be nature-identical flavouring for mango - as above.

Orange peel (7 per cent)

In here for flavouring.

Rosehips

This will be in here mainly for flavour. Rosehip tea has a tart taste and is nutrient rich.

Liquorice Root

This is often used in natural remedies and teas to give a slightly sweet flavour which means no sugar needs to be added.

My recommendations

This is close to being the real deal, but not quite. The fact that there is no mango in here despite it being called Mango and Strawberry means something else in here is mimicking the taste.

Sure, it's natural, but it's not mango. I will be a happy woman the day I buy a herbal tea and everything that is supposed to be in it, is actually there.

Meanwhile, this is a much preferable choice to a herbal tea using artificial flavouring. If the label simply says "flavouring" that means it is artificial.

Read Wendyl's columns on other food products here.