Flavor Transformation

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The dynamics of flavoring are in transition as innovation presents new challenges

By Peter Keen

"Innovation” seems too bland an adjective to describe the ongoing transformation of flavor science and practice in tea and coffee. Or, rather, in the tea/coffee-influenced/identified as/associated with/infused by market of hot/cold/sparkling/iced/alcoholic/craft beverages and foods that you will find in the store in the refrigerator or on tea/coffee/soft/energy/wellness drink shelves―and liquor store.

Nitro coffee provides a typical example of the dynamics of flavor innovation in this context. Drink manufacturers have added this colorless and odorless gas to sparkling water, soda, and beer for many years. But it is new to coffee. It falls into the iced coffee category. But it is very different in flavor. It’s foamier than the drinks that use carbon dioxide. The foam creates a distinct mouthfeel and perception of sweetness. One expert summarizes it as tricking the tongue by hitting it at different places and bringing out more flavors.

Mug with tea

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Mug with tea

Mug with tea and tea leaves in the evening cafe

“One flavor trend, hibiscus, is now established in the market,” says Frey & Lau chief flavorist Cosimo Figliuzzi. He predicts there will be three major flavor trends in coffee. “We spotted the floral trend that blooms with flavors of orange and elderflower, lavender, violets, and rose. A powerful second is superfruits which contain very berry-licious flavors of acai, goji, and concord grape.  The most classic trend, but definitely not a boring one, in this threesome is the citric coffee kick, with flavors of cold-pressed lime, blood orange, and grapefruit,” said Figliuzzi.

Nitro is becoming very popular as a healthy drink that is sweet without adding sugar. A fast-growing niche is fitness studios where its attraction is as an energy boost in workouts. One of the striking general trends in the health-and-wellness market is the rehabilitation of caffeine, very much a no-no in herbal teas. So, it’s iced coffee but healthier. It’s also “beer for breakfast.” One review is titled “The wellness-obsessed are caffeinating with nitro.”  Starbucks positions it as a cold brew and talks up its rich “sorta filling taste, like a Guinness” but with just five calories and no sugar.

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Here, as in many flavor innovations and new beverages, tea is a value-driver. It has a well-established reputation for its health benefit: its “health halos”. It integrates well with many non-tea ingredients and is a “go-go” addition to many drink makers’ products. That includes alcohol, where it is a natural complement in tea-infused cocktails.

Tea is now very much part of the carbonated soft drink market, blends, lattes, premium ready-to-drink (RTDs), and cold juices. It underlies the move from matcha as a premium green tea to a ubiquitous ingredient in baked goods, ice-cream, tea blends, beer, and even matcha breakfast waffles. It’s not easy to answer the question: Is there any segment of foods and drinks that doesn’t include matcha as a major growth factor? As with nitro, a marketing highlight is its smoothness and fresh, natural composition and its high, healthy level of anti-oxidants – that is, its tea-ness.

This variety doesn’t seem a haphazard shuffling of categories and blurring of boundaries. There are four core drivers apparent across the innovations: consumer de-segmentation, ingredient discrimination, supply chain integrity, and out-of-home experiences. Very roughly, these come together as consumers vary widely in their taste preferences, with millennials the growing target, the drinks that appeal to the heterogenous drinkers rely more and more on an immense range of botanicals and ingredients that are naturally natural in the consumer’s mind. Food safety and quality assurance are absolute priorities. Beverages are part of a wider experience and corresponding service locations. Foodies, bar patrons, exercisers, and drop-in shoppers increasingly dine away from home and want a menu of beverage choices to enhance their experience, not just a tea or coffee list.

Consumer de-segmentation

Traditional customer/product distinctions no longer apply: tea versus coffee drinkers, caffeinated/caffeine-free products or pub versus gym or restaurant or coffee-tea house as serving setting. It is noteworthy that there are two clear major taste-choosers – taste-makers. The main one is the ultra-high growth market in Asia of millennials and younger age groups. They are the force behind bubble tea and cheese teas. Their flavor biases are for smoothness above all plus a lack of bitterness – a substantial blockage to building a new generation of traditional tea drinkers. They enjoy a light and lingering sweetness in their taste preferences.

Their flavor values are for variety, personalization, originality, customization, and lots of zest. They have become the missing generation in the traditional tea market. In China, they created the boom in bubble teas, cheese tea, and to a lesser degree, matcha while that for traditional green teas remains static. In Britain, sales in its established black tea market base are dropping and dropping. Fairly uniformly, they don’t like the bitterness of tea.

Cheese tea entrepreneur Nie Yunchen, c.e.o. at Hey Tea, captures this: “We wanted to add a new flavor that young people would like.” He adds that the rich foam makes tea taste even better. The teas can be customized with low-fat and low sugar toppings and fresh fruit. Bubble teas stand out for their variety and versatility.

One growing source of flavor differentiation with a health halo is alternatives to dairy milk other than safe, boring soy: coconut, almond, and flax.

The second, largely Western, major new segment is what has been termed “the conscious consumer.” They are in many ways uninterested in the category of a drink but very much concerned with the values built into it. They are health-conscious and want to know where a drink comes from, what it’s made of, ethical issues in workers; rights and incomes, safety especially in pesticides, and natural ingredients. A compact summary by a provider is: “No one should have to settle when it comes to what they put in their body, play guessing games as to where the ingredients come from or, worse, assume that words they cannot pronounce on the label are safe.”

The quote in Food Business News by Niko Nilolaou, co-founder of Cham, cold brew tea points to the dominant flavor trend in the Western markets: botanicals.

Ingredient discrimination

Basically, the new flavors are based on the implicit principle that all molecules are created equal and all can be used to flavor a drink. Botanicals have replaced artificial flavors and chemical additives as the core of flavor design and differentiation. Technology, especially biogenetics is identifying more and more discriminations of flavor to work with. One example is peppermint oil, with 350 volatiles. There are now over a thousand approved natural extracts and aroma compounds,

A new beverage more defined by its ingredient than its label. These coffee flavors would have seemed fantasies just a few years ago:

• Lacombe Latte: honeysuckle plus caramel

• Café Agave: spiked cold brew coffee: wine-based coffee, with dairy cream and agave nectar

• Lemon-ginger Herbal: a hot tea with probiotics

• Jalisco Campfire: tequila, Lapsang Souchong tea, agave and Thai chili

• VansBuskirk: rosemary and bergamot coffee

As for tea espresso, cascara (made from coffee cherry husk waste), a health tea line with guarana for energy, lavender latte, green tea for health and valerian for sleep… These are highly discriminating in their ingredients and aimed at discriminating customers. RTDs now amount to over 80% of the U.S. cold beverage market. Historically, they were a commodity product that was highly standardized and with somewhat dubious ingredient lists. Now, there’s a flourishing of premium products exploiting natural, plant-based ingredients, and establishing macro wellness and health formats.

The RTD market is seeing a wide-ranging reformulation of products with new ingredients that redefine the product, market and flavor profiles. The same applies to kombucha and cold brew teas, both “new” and with no obvious place on the grocery store shelf. Technology is helping drive the market for molecules with biosynthesis a growing opportunity. Just about all the production of vanillin is in the vat, not the field. Even coloring is becoming organic, natural, and botanical. There are strict regulatory standards in place to ensure that colors derived from agricultural products not use synthetic solvents and carriers or any artificial preservatives. Gatorade is an early adopter of organic coloring. Organics are spreading across the entire supply chain.

Consumer discrimination in demand drives producers’ differentiated discriminations in supply. Google’s comprehensive 2017 Beverage Report provides a clear picture of global consumer flavor preferences. It combines analysis of search patterns and interviews in the UK, U.S., Spain, and Mexico. Ginger is growing in demand as a flavor across all four markets, averaging 30% increase per annum. This includes tea, juices, beer, and infusions. Turmeric is a newcomer in high demand on the preference list.

Supply chain integrity

Flavor design is a multidimensional balance between ingredients, packaging, quality assurance, and logistics. The new reality is safety first. The Federal Food Safety Management Act (FSMA) imposes strict regulations and standards on food and beverages from certifying ingredient suppliers to testing for pesticides and contaminants to packaging. For teas where the main ingredients are leaves, issues of seasonality, consistency, and origin constrain flavor options, while the use of essences and liquids affect transport and storage.

Manufacturing is a key consideration in new flavors. Many products require new equipment and processes. Large companies face capacity and space constraints. Co-packers are responding by building new facilities to meet the demand.

Some flavor innovations depend on new science and technology. Bigelow’s probiotics tea is an instance. This uses lemon ginger as the flavoring ingredient. The main development issues were technological and logistical: dosing levels, microorganism strains, and particle size. This last issue was to ensure that production runs efficiently on processing and packaging equipment. Lemon and ginger were chosen as two “pleasing” botanicals.

Nitro coffee in cans sounds like a simple packaging routine. It demanded what the firm’s contracted expert calls “beyond rocket science” to prevent the gas escaping the liquid.

Out-of-home experiences

Most drinks are now consumed outside the home, many of them are selected on the basis of the experience customers seek. The flavors on offer are very much part of this. It underlies the growth in “exotic” tea-infused cocktails as part of the bar experience, matcha beers and cold brew in the pub and snack bar experience and the fusion between food and beverages in fine dining; eaters want a drink that goes well with the food. As they try new dishes, they want to be able to pick new beverages.

Overall, the drivers of change mark a shift in flavors have moved from being primarily variations within themes to the search for new themes. The difference is illustrated by breakfast black teas. They have been very much differentiated by “a little of this and a little of that” approach. The basic tea theme has been variations of English, Irish, and Scottish Breakfast, Farmhouse, Morning, and similar branding. A base Assam or Kenya leaf with a little Keemum, Ceylon, Malawi and, maybe, Darjeeling. This standardized market is losing its pull, but the same principles apply: skilled flavoring through blending, improved freshness, quality control, clonal varietals, and premiumization.

Old and new customer segments look for flavors that stand out in taste, meet their values, and add to their sense of experience.