RTD News
Purpose Tea Launches in the Southwest and Midwest
Texas-based Purpose Tea introduced its bottled Kenyan-sourced purple tea collection in December. Initially it was available in approximately 100 stores in New Mexico, Texas and the Midwest and will soon be distributed to California and the Pacific Northwest.
Current sugar-sweetened flavors are: Purple Reign, Lemon Bliss and Mint To Be. Purpose Tea intends to introduce additional unsweetened flavors soon.
Purpose Tea strives to empower women by collaborating with tea farms to support educational and entrepreneurial initiatives for female tea workers.
Zest Tea Introduces Sparkling RTD Line
Baltimore, Maryland-based Zest Tea launched its first line of ready-to-drink sparkling energy teas in December. The teas contain vitamin B and l-theanine and have between 25 to 35 calories and 5 grams of sugar. Zest Tea touts itself as “the most caffeinated tea on the market” on its website.
The flavors in the line are: Sparkling Citrus Hibiscus black tea, Sparkling Pomito Lime green tea and Sparkling Masala Chai.
Zest Tea is planning retail distribution for either at the end of the first quarter or the beginning of the second quarter of 2018.
Coca-Cola Takes Fuze to Europe
Coca-Cola Co. created Fuze Tea, which is a mixture of tea extracts, fruit flavors and botanicals. Initially in 2012, the teas launched in other international markets and now Coca-Cola European Partners will bring the tea to Europe later this month, reports Packaging News.
The Fuze Tea flavors are Black Tea Peach with Hibiscus and Green Tea Mango with chamomile. The blends were created at the Coca-Cola R&D Center in Brussels. The teas are sweetened with stevia and have only 14 to 19 calories per 100 ml.
“The launch of Fuze Tea is a fantastic opportunity for our business to provide new, more sophisticated flavours to more people in more places,” Simon Harrison, operational marketing director GB at Coca-Cola European Partners, said. “Ready-to-drink ice tea is an important, fast-growing category which is currently worth £47million in GB and has grown by 12 percent in the past year alone. We believe the time is right for us to broaden the reach of our expanding portfolio and work with our retail and wider partners to take advantage of this significant opportunity for growth.”