If you've read anything about food safety in India recently, you've probably seen the name Sunset Yellow FCF. It's one of the most talked about synthetic colours in the country, and one of the first things people ask about when a tea or beverage brand comes under scrutiny. Here's what it actually is.
The basics
Sunset Yellow FCF (INS 110) is a synthetic, petroleum-derived dye that produces a bright orange-yellow colour. It's cheap, stable, and doesn't fade the way natural colourants can which is exactly why it's used so widely in processed food and drink around the world, from soft drinks to sauces to confectionery.
It is not a natural ingredient in tea, coffee, or any plant product. If it's present in a tea, it was added.
Where it's actually allowed
Sunset Yellow FCF is one of a small set of synthetic colours India's food regulator permits but only in specific food categories, and only up to a maximum level, typically capped in the range of 100–200 mg/kg depending on the category. Permitted does not mean permitted everywhere.
Tea is not one of the categories where added synthetic colour is permitted. That's not our interpretation it's written directly into how laboratories report the test. When a tea sample is tested for Sunset Yellow FCF, the specification isn't "must be under some limit." It's "should be absent." Anything else is a fail, at any concentration.
Why it gets tested for specifically
Sunset Yellow FCF and a handful of other dyes Tartrazine, Ponceau 4R, Carmoisine, Erythrosine, Indigo Carmine, Brilliant Blue FCF, Fast Green FCF form the standard panel labs run when checking a food product for undeclared synthetic colour. It's not that Sunset Yellow FCF is uniquely dangerous among the eight; it's that it's cheap, produces a colour close to the reddish-brown of brewed tea, and has historically been the one most often found where it shouldn't be.
What we did about it
We had New Fast Tea Batch 12 tested for this exact panel at an NABL-accredited laboratory. Sunset Yellow FCF, along with the other six colours tested, came back Not Detected.
Read the full Batch 12 report → See every batch we've tested →
The honest caveat
"Not detected" means not found above the laboratory's detection threshold using the method it used it isn't a claim of absolute zero, and no test result is. We'd rather tell you that plainly than round it up into something it isn't.