Licorice flavor comes from the root of a plant called Glycyrrhiza glabra, a legume native to southern Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. The root contains a compound called glycyrrhizin that is 50 to 100 times sweeter than table sugar, with a distinctive slow-building sweetness and a long aftertaste. But glycyrrhizin is only part of the story. Much of what people recognize as “licorice flavor” actually comes from a second compound called anethole, which shows up in several completely unrelated plants.
The Licorice Root Plant
Glycyrrhiza glabra grows wild across a belt stretching from Spain and Italy through Turkey, Iran, and Iraq into Central Asia and northwestern China. The plant is a perennial legume, a relative of beans and peas, and it has been cultivated for thousands of years. It was one of the most prescribed herbs in ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, and Chinese medicine, used for everything from coughs to digestive complaints. Chinese physicians have documented its use since at least 25 A.D.
Today, major producing countries include Iran, China, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The root is harvested, dried, sliced, and crushed into powder, then soaked in a water-and-alcohol mixture at moderate heat to draw out its flavor compounds. That concentrated extract ends up in candy, herbal teas, soft drinks, chewing gum, and even tobacco products, where it serves as both a sweetener and a flavoring agent.
Two Compounds, One Flavor
Licorice flavor is really a blend of two distinct taste experiences. Glycyrrhizin provides the intense, lingering sweetness. It’s a large sugar-like molecule that hits your palate slowly and sticks around long after you swallow, which is why licorice has that unmistakable aftertaste. Anethole provides the aromatic punch, the warm, slightly spicy quality most people think of when they picture black licorice.
What makes this confusing is that anethole isn’t unique to licorice root. It’s the dominant flavor compound in anise seed, star anise, and fennel, three plants from completely different botanical families. Anise seed gets almost all of its flavor from anethole alone. Licorice root contains anethole too, but layered with glycyrrhizin and other compounds that give it a deeper, more complex, slightly medicinal quality. That extra depth is what separates real licorice from the brighter, simpler taste of anise.
Why So Many Plants Taste Like Licorice
If you’ve ever noticed that fennel, anise, star anise, tarragon, and licorice all share a family resemblance, anethole is the reason. These plants evolved independently to produce the same aromatic molecule, likely because it serves as a natural insect repellent or attracts specific pollinators. The overlap is so strong that fennel seed can substitute for anise seed at a one-to-one ratio in recipes, though fennel skews slightly sweeter and milder.
Star anise deserves a special note. It comes from a tree native to southern China and Vietnam and is botanically unrelated to both anise seed and licorice root. Yet it produces anethole as its primary aromatic compound, making it taste remarkably similar. One important safety distinction: the culinary species is safe, but a toxic look-alike called Japanese star anise exists, which is why buying from a trusted source matters.
What’s Actually in Black Licorice Candy
Most commercial black licorice candy uses both licorice root extract and anise oil. Panda, one of the better-known brands that markets itself as “natural,” lists its ingredients as molasses, wheat flour, licorice extract, and aniseed oil. The anise oil reinforces and amplifies the licorice flavor at a lower cost than using pure licorice extract alone. Some cheaper products skip licorice extract entirely and rely on anise oil as the sole flavoring, which is why many “licorice” candies contain no actual licorice at all.
If you want to know whether a product contains real licorice, check the ingredient list for “licorice extract,” “licorice root,” or “glycyrrhizin.” If it only lists “anise” or “natural flavors,” you’re tasting the anethole mimic, not the real root.
Why Licorice Root Affects Your Body
Glycyrrhizin does more than taste sweet. Inside your body, it blocks an enzyme that normally keeps the stress hormone cortisol in check. When that enzyme is suppressed, cortisol builds up and starts activating receptors in the kidneys that control salt and water balance. The result, with heavy or prolonged consumption, is that your body retains sodium, loses potassium, and your blood pressure climbs. The effect follows a dose-response pattern: more licorice, higher blood pressure.
This isn’t a concern with occasional candy eating or the small amounts of licorice in herbal tea blends. The risk applies to people who consume large quantities regularly over weeks. Researchers have proposed a safe daily intake of roughly 100 to 200 milligrams of glycyrrhizin for an average adult, which translates to a modest amount of licorice candy or extract. For context, therapeutic doses of dried licorice root used in traditional medicine (5 to 15 grams daily) were historically recommended for no more than four to six weeks at a stretch.
Products flavored with anise oil instead of real licorice extract don’t carry this risk, since anethole doesn’t have the same hormonal effects. So the distinction between “licorice-flavored” and “made with licorice” matters for more than just taste.