Iced Tea, the most widely consumed beverage in the world, is creating an emerging subcategory within the RTD market of alcoholic beverages; hard teas are on the rise.
Though hard seltzer brands have released hard tea seltzers to compete in the emerging category, it’s specialty brands like Loverboy and Owl’s Brew, both which we distribute here at Atlanta Beverage, that Drizly recognizes as the fastest growing boozy tea-product brands year over year.
Last year, in the U.S., the volume of hard tea products grew 25.9 percent, as reported by the IWSR Drinks Market Analysis.
Owl’s Brew co-founders, Jennie Ripps and Maria Littlefield, say it’s this flavor, and the popularity of non-alcoholic tea, that presents an “enormous opportunity” for the hard tea category. The brand released their new Jasmine flavor this summer, alongside Matcha with hints of pineapple and chamomile, as well as White Tea, raspberry and watermelon. “As we’ve seen with hard seltzers, consumers are looking for a better-for-you experience in their alcoholic beverages, and hard tea is no exception,” say Ripps and Littlefield, who emphasize the category’s evolution to include options that are lower in sugar and calories but also made from whole, real ingredients.
If hard tea continues on this trajectory, the IWSR predicts that the category will further grow by 46.4 percent in volume between 2021 and 2025.
See more of this Forbes article here
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