Buying tea when you have Celiac

Might come as a surprise to some of you, but tea can contain gluten from additives & cross-contamination, in which barley or malt is added for flavorings. Teavana is known for adding such additives in their tea (and I got glutented from it one time). Say, I’m interested in some tea. I first need to look up its country of origin, because that tells me about how good the food labeling laws is. If it’s from Australia / New Zealand, this means the label will always state gluten. If it’s from EU (not pan-Europe) it’s also good, except they allow products with < 20 PPM to be labeled gluten-free. But this is still good. If it’s from USA, a lot of scrutiny is called because the US FDA does not enforce gluten labeling, only wheat is required. But not all gluten-y stuff is wheat :/ ...

February 14, 2021 · 2 min · Karn Wong