Last updated: October 2026
CBD oil usually tastes earthy, grassy and slightly bitter, with a nutty or peppery edge and an oily feel. How strong that is depends on the extract (full and broad spectrum taste more of hemp than isolate), its terpenes, the carrier oil and any flavouring. Flavoured oils and capsules avoid most of it.
Below: why CBD oil tastes the way it does, a taste guide to our own oils, nine practical ways to deal with the taste, when a bad taste means a bad bottle, and whether taste changes how well it works.
Don’t like the taste of hemp?
Our Evolabs oils come in orange, mint with vitamin D3 and cherry, all broad spectrum in MCT oil with natural flavouring. If you’d rather taste nothing at all, our Broad Spectrum CBD Capsules are tasteless vegan capsules. Everything is vegan, made in the UK and third-party lab tested.
Add Evolabs Orange CBD Oil 1,000mg to bag or choose another strength
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Why CBD oil tastes the way it does
CBD itself has very little flavour. What you taste is everything that comes with it: the other hemp compounds kept in the extract, the oil it is dissolved in, and anything added to cover it.
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| Ingredient | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Hemp terpenes | Earthy, piney, peppery or citrus notes. See what are terpenes? |
| Plant compounds such as flavonoids and chlorophyll | Grassy, bitter, “green” flavours; more in less refined oils |
| Carrier oil | MCT (coconut) oil is mild and neutral; hemp seed oil is nutty; olive oil is peppery |
| Added flavours or botanicals | Fruit, mint or herbal notes that mask the hemp taste |
The carrier oil matters more than most people think. MCT oil is light and almost tasteless, so the hemp extract is what you notice. Hemp seed oil adds its own nutty, grassy flavour on top, and olive oil adds a peppery bite. Carrier oils also differ in how quickly they go stale, which is the main reason a bottle can start to taste “off” (more on that below). We use MCT oil in all our CBD oils; see MCT vs hemp seed vs olive oil for the full comparison.
Taste by type of CBD
| Type | Typical taste |
|---|---|
| Full spectrum | Strongest, earthiest hemp flavour |
| Broad spectrum (unflavoured) | Earthy and slightly bitter, often a little milder |
| Isolate | Almost tasteless; mainly the carrier oil |
| Flavoured oils | Mostly the flavour, with a mild hemp finish |
| Capsules | No taste |
Does CBD oil taste like weed? Not really. It shares some of the same terpenes as cannabis, so an unflavoured full or broad spectrum oil can have a faint herbal, “hempy” note, but it doesn’t taste or smell like smoked cannabis. Flavoured oils and capsules have almost none of it.
See full spectrum vs broad spectrum vs isolate for how the three types differ beyond taste.
Taste guide to our oils and capsules
All of our oils are broad spectrum CBD in MCT oil. None of them contain sugar or sweeteners: the flavoured Evolabs oils list just three ingredients, MCT oil, natural flavouring and hemp-derived CBD.
| Product | What it tastes like | Carrier and sweetener | Strengths | Drops for 10mg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evolabs Orange | Zesty natural orange, subtle rather than sweet | MCT oil; no sweetener | 500mg, 1,000mg or 2,000mg (30ml) | About 12, 6 or 3 |
| Evolabs Mint + Vit D3 | Fresh mint; plus 5µg vegan vitamin D3 per half pipette | MCT oil; no sweetener | 500mg, 1,000mg or 2,000mg (30ml) | About 12, 6 or 3 |
| Evolabs Cherry | Sweet, fruity natural cherry flavour | MCT oil; no sweetener | 500mg, 1,000mg or 2,000mg (30ml) | About 12, 6 or 3 |
| Evolabs Natural | Unflavoured: earthy hemp taste | MCT oil; no sweetener | 500mg, 1,000mg or 2,000mg (30ml) | About 12, 6 or 3 |
| Broad Spectrum CBD Oil | Unflavoured: earthy hemp, keeping the wider range of hemp terpenes | MCT oil; no sweetener | 500mg, 1,000mg or 2,000mg (10ml) | About 4, 2 or 1 |
| Broad Spectrum CBD Capsules | No taste: vegan HPMC capsule with inulin | None needed | 10mg or 25mg per capsule | One 10mg capsule |
| Evolabs 1500mg Capsules | No taste: vegan softgels | MCT oil inside the softgel | 30mg per capsule | Above 10mg (see below) |
Drop counts assume a standard drop of about 0.05ml (20 drops per ml) and are rounded. The mint oil’s vitamin D3 comes from algae, so it stays vegan. Vitamin D contributes to the normal function of the immune system.
A useful tip if taste is your main problem: a stronger oil means fewer drops for the same amount of CBD. Ten milligrams is about 12 drops of a 500mg Evolabs oil but only about 3 drops of the 2,000mg, so there is simply less oil in your mouth. See the CBD oil strength chart for the maths.
9 ways to make CBD oil taste better
- Choose a flavoured oil. Our Evolabs oils come in cherry, orange and mint, all broad spectrum. For most people this solves the problem on its own.
- Pick a higher strength so you take fewer drops. Less oil means less taste. Just make sure you count drops carefully, as each one carries more CBD.
- Hold it briefly, then swallow. Our labels suggest holding drops under your tongue for up to 60 seconds. If the taste bothers you, a shorter hold is a fair compromise: a small study found sublingual drops and swallowed capsules gave similar blood levels (see “Does the taste change how well it works?”).
- Chase it with something sour or cold. A sip of orange or apple juice straight after works well. In one study of a very bitter nutritional drink, both chilling it and adding a sour flavour made it taste noticeably less bitter.
- Mix it into food or a drink with some fat in it. Smoothies, yoghurt, porridge, salad dressing, nut butter or a milky latte all hide the taste. CBD doesn’t dissolve in water, so a glass of water alone won’t mix. Ideas in cooking with CBD oil and how to make CBD tea.
- Let hot drinks cool to sipping temperature first. Lab studies that heated CBD for hours or days found it breaks down faster the hotter it gets. A few minutes in a mug is a very different thing, so this isn’t a big worry, but there’s no reason to stir it into a boiling drink.
- Chill the bottle. Cold dulls bitterness. The oil may thicken a little in the fridge; our storage guide explains when the fridge helps.
- Switch to capsules if you dislike any taste. You lose the ability to adjust by the drop, but you gain a fixed, tasteless dose. See CBD oil vs capsules.
- Brush your teeth afterwards, not just before. Brushing clears any aftertaste. Taking drops straight after brushing often makes them taste stranger, for the same reason orange juice tastes odd after toothpaste. A square of dark chocolate or a mint after your drops also works.
More step-by-step help in how to take CBD oil.
Bitter, fishy or rancid: does taste tell you about quality?
Not reliably. A strong earthy taste can mean a less refined, more natural extract; a bland taste can mean isolate or a heavily refined oil. Neither tells you how much CBD is in the bottle or whether it contains THC.
There is one exception worth knowing. Earthy and bitter is normal. Rancid, fishy, sour or paint-like is not. Those smells usually mean the carrier oil has started to oxidise, the same thing that happens to old cooking oil. Oils rich in polyunsaturated fats, such as hemp seed, sunflower and olive oil, are the most prone: lab work has shown hemp seed oil’s fats break down with heat and oxygen, and a 2022 study found olive and sunflower based cannabis oils formed free radicals when aged, while MCT based oils showed little or none. That stability is one reason we use MCT.
| What you notice | What it usually means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Earthy, grassy, slightly bitter | Normal hemp taste | Nothing; try the tips above |
| Very bitter or harsh | Strong extract, or a lot of oil per dose | Try a flavoured or stronger oil, or capsules |
| Rancid, fishy, sour or like old cooking oil | The carrier oil has oxidised | Check the best-before date and stop using it |
| Cloudy or thick after the fridge | Cold, not spoilage | Let it come back to room temperature |
The batch lab report is the only real measure of quality, so check it rather than your taste buds. See how to read a lab report; ours are on the lab testing page.
Related guides
- The best CBD oil UK picks, including flavoured oils.
- If you can’t get on with the taste at all, capsules avoid it completely: see the best CBD capsules in the UK.
- CBD brownies, where dark chocolate covers the earthy taste.
- A milky latte is one of the easiest ways to mask the taste; here is how to make a CBD latte at home.
- Baking hides the taste well; see our CBD cake recipes for four easy bakes.
- Much of the taste is set by how far the extract is refined; see how CBD is extracted from hemp.
- If taste is putting you off, see how CBD oil or gummies compare on sugar, dose and cost per mg.
- Butter hides the earthy taste well: see how to make CBD butter for toast and baking.
- If you want no hemp taste at all, CBD isolate is pure CBD with no flavour or smell.
Does the taste change how well it works?
There’s no good evidence that it does. Flavouring changes the taste, not the amount of CBD, so a flavoured oil and an unflavoured oil of the same strength give you the same dose.
How you take it seems to matter less than many people assume, too. A small 2023 study at Loughborough University gave eight men the same CBD oil either as drops under the tongue or swallowed in capsules, and found no meaningful difference in blood CBD levels. The researchers’ conclusion was that most sublingual oil is probably swallowed before much is absorbed in the mouth. So if you hold drops for less time, or switch to capsules because of the taste, you are unlikely to be losing much.
What does make a big difference is food. In a 2025 study, taking a CBD-rich hemp extract after a high-fat meal gave roughly ten times more total CBD in the blood than taking it on an empty stomach. Mixing your oil into food with some fat in it, or taking it after a meal, is good for taste and for absorption. More in why isn’t CBD working for me?
How much to take: drops per 10mg
The Food Standards Agency advises healthy adults to take no more than 10mg of CBD a day. For our oils, that is about 12 drops of a 500mg Evolabs oil, 6 drops of the 1,000mg or 3 drops of the 2,000mg, or about 4 drops of our 500mg Broad Spectrum CBD Oil. Our 10mg Broad Spectrum CBD Capsules give exactly 10mg each, while each Evolabs softgel is 30mg, above the FSA figure.
The FSA’s 10mg a day figure is precautionary advice rather than a legal limit, set while longer-term safety research continues. At Evopure we think it is a very cautious figure, and many adults use more. If you go above it, increase slowly, and check with your GP or pharmacist first if you take any medication.
Our products are for adults (18+) only. We don’t recommend our products during pregnancy or breastfeeding. For a full dosing chart, see how much CBD should I take?
Sources 9
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- Saals BADF et al (2025). A high-fat meal significantly impacts the bioavailability and biphasic absorption of cannabidiol (CBD) from a CBD-rich extract in men and women. Scientific Reports. PMID 39880884.
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