# What is that flavor in flavored coffee?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-that-flavor-in-flavored-coffee/685883>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** coffee\
**Created:** [April 11, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-that-flavor-in-flavored-coffee/685883 "2014-04-11T17:01:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-that-flavor-in-flavored-coffee/685883/21 "2014-04-13T19:00:06Z")

</div>

> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> This was neither limited to Jello or particularly underhanded - or particularly unusual in the food/flavorings industry.
> 
> I’d wager that no more than 20% of the foods on grocery store shelves are flavored with what they claim to be flavored with - the rest use alternate flavorings that through application and suggestion please buyer palates.

I dont know whether this holds true elsewhere, but in the UK, if something says ‘banana flavour **ed** ’, it must contain bananas as the principal flavouring - if it’s labelled ‘banana flavour’, it needn’t.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-that-flavor-in-flavored-coffee/685883/22 "2014-04-13T20:26:44Z")

</div>

> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> I dont know whether this holds true elsewhere, but in the UK, if something says ‘banana flavour **ed** ’, it must contain bananas as the principal flavouring - if it’s labelled ‘banana flavour’, it needn’t.

There are many subtleties on such naming, but few of them make much sense and very little is actually regulated. It’s trivial to avoid the regulated terms and call synthesized glop anything you want with a few prefixes and suffixes. Especially in the US where the agencies have all but abandoned enforcement of labeling outside the nutrition box.

If you call it peanut butter, it has to contain 90% or more ground peanuts. If you call it peanut spread, it can contain nearly anything you want as long as there’s some essence of something peanutty somewhere.

Or my favorite grocery-store troll, Nutella - in Europe, it’s sold on the candy aisle in 6-12 ounce jars and labeled “chocolate spread with hazelnut flavoring.” Same goop here in kilo jars next to the peanut butter is “Hazelnut spread with skim milk and cocoa.” (45% palm oil, 40% sugar, 10% hazelnuts, 5% skim milk powder, cocoa and miscellany.) Since the nutrition panel tells all, the rest of the label can be sheer fantasy. I particularly like the little green cartoon sprig of… something.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-that-flavor-in-flavored-coffee/685883.md?page=1)