Annatto
A natural orange colouring from the seeds of the achiote tree, used to tint cheddar, Red Leicester and Mimolette.
Also: achiote, Bixa orellana, roucou
Annatto comes from the red seed coat of Bixa orellana, a shrub of tropical America known as achiote. Its pigment, bixin, gives cheese a colour from pale gold to deep orange without adding much flavour. English cheesemakers began colouring cheese in the seventeenth century, partly to imitate the deep yellow of rich summer milk, and the habit stuck: Red Leicester, Double Gloucester, many cheddars, Mimolette and the orange smear of some washed rinds owe their colour to it. Cheese that is naturally pale is called white, as in white cheddar. In Mexico and the Caribbean the same seeds are a cooking spice. A cheese's colour therefore says little about its age or richness.