Considering what some people and companies put in tea, I wouldn't be surprised if someone was marketing a flavored black tea that contained gluten. They might even know it. (I just tried an allegedly "cucumber lime white tea" that contains some black tea, and tastes mostly of lemon. The people who wrote the package copy ran with the word "lemongrass" and has clearly never seen any.)
With how much unnecessary crap and processing they put food through these days, I would not be surprised at all if a lot of teas either contain gluten or are processed on the same lines as gluten products. What's really scary is that companies don't have to list a lot of the processing chemicals, which makes avoiding some food allergens a game of Russian roulette (and if you ask the companies directly they'll often claim 'proprietary information' on you. Which basically means 'yes, we do use things we shouldn't and that probably includes the thing you're allergic to.'), This is a big reason why I'm trying to grow my own tea herbs now. Just gotta find myself a good source for black tea now :p.
Late last year I went gluten free after suspicion of having celiacs so I've been checking everything and it's kinda surprising what foods it shows up in. :O Thankfully I haven't had to throw out much tea, that would be terrible.
Hey, I've tried to buy "vegetarian" burger patties which turned out to bear the warning that they "may contain fish oil". I kinda want to ask "Well, do they or don't they?" It's not that I don't think that anything should contain fish oil, I mean obviously if you're buying fish because that's what you want it'd be kind of weird if it didn't, but to go to the trouble of putting out specifically vegetarian products, while asking people to gamble on that seems... fishy to me. So, I don't know what to expect from any food product I get anymore. It's like "Hello, we're strawberries! We have, like, scorpion in us, or something."
no subject
Date: 2013-06-05 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-05 08:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-05 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-05 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-05 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-05 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-11 01:32 am (UTC)