"Carageenan is a natural seaweed gelling agent." It's considered organic and natural. Personally, I don't like it at all and I think it changes the flavor. It's intended to make the cream thicker.

I live in northern California and we have a couple different dairies that supply pure cream. One of them is Strauss. I like their cream best because it has a higher percentage of fat. It's naturally thick, very rich, creamy , and tastes great.

Every bottle I open has a layer of clotted cream at the top. This is natural. Basically, even after cream is separated from the milk, there are still varying concentrations and it separates more.

I would suspect that the carageenan continues to thicken the cream as it sits and that thickening will settle to the bottom rather than the top for natural separation. If you buy it when it's just been delivered to the store, it would be somewhat thinner.

Here's another use for carageenan:



I hope this helps,
;-Deb