First, let's explain what terracattu is. It's a natural dye extracted from some plants of the Acacia genus, or at least that's what you find written everywhere. In reality, the plant mainly used for this purpose is Senegalia catechu, which isn't actually an acacia, but belongs to the Senegalia genus. This is actually an understandable inaccuracy; the Senegalia and Acacia genuses are both part of the same subfamily (with the almost unpronounceable name of Caesalpinioideae) within the large Fabaceae or Leguminosae family, and are very similar to each other.
The name catechu is Linnaeus's Latinization of the plant's Malay name, kachu, while in Hindi it is called khair. The extracts obtained from it are known by various names, the most common being catechu and cutch (this name usually refers to the brown dye used to color and preserve fishing nets and sails). Catechu (sometimes Italianized as cattù or terracattu), being a natural and edible dye, is used to color everything, both non-edible products and the food industry. Various colors can be obtained from it, for example, with the black obtained from this extract (commonly called black cutch), a famous black vodka has recently been made.
What makes catechù highly prized as a food coloring is that, on the one hand, it makes the product pleasing to the eye with different possible colors, on the other, it does not affect the flavor in the slightest. So this silver terracattu licorice is a pure licorice slightly sweetened with a little sugar (remember that pure licorice is still sweet, so much so that licorice extract is used as a sweetener, but it has a slightly bitter/sour aftertaste) and lightly scented with mint, while the aforementioned catechù gives it the captivating silver color.
The combination of licorice and mint flavor has always been very popular, usually it is a classic of the winter months that on the one hand is suitable for those who cannot stand the very strong pure mint and on the other for those who find the purest unsweetened licorice a bit extreme for their tastes, but the combination of mint and licorice is actually not just a halfway meeting of flavors, it is also a combination of the regenerating and slightly disinfectant properties of licorice (which in traditional Chinese medicine, but also by the ancient Greeks, was prescribed as a remedy for cough) and the balsamic properties of mint.
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