Flavor and fragrance chemistry is tricky stuff. Very very tricky and there's quite a few different techniques you can use to come up with a flavor. It's sort of along the lines of mixing a good cocktail. Think of a Long Island Iced Tea- a buncha stuff and magically it turns into something that tastes like iced tea. That's sort of the magic with flavors/fragrance. The Perfumer's Apprentice site has some good info as well if you really want to get into the nitty gritty.
This is taken from Nature's Flavors.com they make natural and organic flavors for quite a few industries.
"The processes for making organic flavors are much the same as for making natural flavors. The ingredients are organic rather than just natural. You start by using only certified organic ingredients when available and when not you may use naturals provided they fit with in the definition of natural and only comprise less than 5% of the total amount when calling it 95% organic. When calling it 100% organic you must use only certified organic ingredients and nothing else.
Nature's Flavours carries both 95% and 100% certified organic flavors. It is our goal to produce only 100% organic flavor concentrates and extracts as the ingredients become available. In many instances we produce our own organic ingredients to satisfy our strict quality control requirements. Because the industry is still very young the technology's to make these ingredients are still evolving. The only solvents that we use in the development of organic and natural flavors are filtered RO water and organic alcohol. If we can’t extract the ingredients thru these methods then we don't do it.
Steam distillation is another method we employee. Fortunately this is in most cases the only methods needed to manufacture these unique flavor concentrates and extracts. A simple and common process for making vanilla extract is to take organic vanilla beans and grind them to a pulp then allow them to soak and extract in an organic alcohol/water mixture for a period of time sometimes for up to several months. Normally for a standard organic vanilla extract you would extract for a period of not less than fourteen days. That's how long Nature's Flavours allows its organic vanilla extract to age and extract. This method is common for our citrus and other fruit flavor extracts as well. There are usually some filtering and clarifying techniques that follow the extraction process before being bottled or packaged.
There are no chemical residues because there are no chemical solvents used. Many of the organic flavoring ingredients are derived this way first before being incorporated in to water based or oil based organic flavor concentrate. To make the organic flavor concentrates water soluble you must emulsify the oils that were derived and separated from the extraction process or steam distilling and that usually involves using an organic gum or starch and under high pressure and shearing. This process forces the oils and gums to be broken into very small particles and cling to one another with out reforming into there basic building blocks again. The entire process is safe and effective for producing the finest organic flavor oils, flavor concentrates, and flavor extracts. Nature's Flavours has pioneered many of these methods for producing these organic products. We are proud of our flavorings, spices, coffees, and all our organic products. We hope they bring you much enjoyment and satisfaction.
I hope this answers any questions or concerns you might have regarding our organic flavor products."
I work with flavors and fragrances for my job. Most manufacturers keep a lot of the info secret (the FDA says flavors only have to be listed on the ingredients list as "flavor" or "fragrance"), but will answer some questions if you ask. In the EU you do have to list the specific components for certain things and it reads about as easily as Chinese. Linalool, cinnamol, citronel, eugenol, gerinol, coumarin- things like that. There's no real studies for safety, so it's an issue I haven't really paid much attention to.
