While going organic may help Invo stay current and competitive, the market has changed quite a bit. There are more brands competing in the ultra premium coconut water space. And, perhaps more importantly, this segment of the category has eliminated “raw” as an attribute, and there are now a variety of approaches to achieving the level of flavor required to play in this space.
Eliminating the roasting process, which is basically what gives coffee its signature flavor, results in something very different: Instead of a dark, bold, and sometimes acidic flavor, Sunup’s Green Coffee is light and slightly fruity.
As far as yerba mate drinks go, Guayaki is certainly the bar -- and it’s even the brand that, according to the company’s web site, got the founder hooked on mate. So how does Erva stack up? The liquid is really enjoyable -- to the point where we wanted to quickly gulp down the entire bottle.
Califia Farms Nitro Cold Brew is a dairy-free offering that is, at least as far as we know, the first nitro cold brew offering to incorporate almond milk (and macadamia milk).
LIVE has done a nice job of creating one of the more market-ready vinegar-based offerings that’s currently out there. While it’s hard to say exactly how big the potential is for a product like this, it certainly seems like something that can tag along with their kombucha products, at least in some retail outlets.
Compared with what’s already on the market, this product isn’t exactly an innovative offering. But its execution is clean and the product is enjoyable, which allows Starbucks to be in the game with something that can certainly hold its own.
The BluePrint Organic brand has been on an innovation tear as of late, releasing a host of new beverages that include both juice products and vinegar drinks. Its latest effort is this one, a four flavor line of organic kombuchas.
SToK is a relative latecomer to the cold brew coffee category, and we think it’s going to take some serious brand building effort to get traction.
For Pressery, which produces HPP cold-pressed juices and drinking vinegars, a line of bone broths might not seem like the most logical brand extension. After all, the company's other lines are purely vegan and bone broth takes the company into the carnivore realm.
From a packaging perspective, the new green label more effectively catches the eye than prior efforts. You are almost immediately drawn to the “Original Coconut Smoothie,” which is both the flavor name and the descriptor of what’s inside the bottle.
Vita 500 is a vitamin drink that is popular in South Korea, which is where the product is manufactured. Its key benefits are its 500mg of vitamin C (830% RDA) as well as B vitamins, which come inside a formulation that tastes somewhat like a non-carbonated cousin of an energy drink.
For the purposes of this review, we sampled two flavors, Pinot Sage and Apple Juniper. As far as “mainstream” kombucha flavors go, these definitely seem far from it. The products have only trace amounts of bubbles, a modest amount of sweetness, and a slight oak note.
Jittery John’s offers a diverse line of cold-brew coffee offerings. They have seemingly every type of cold-brew covered: ready to drink, nitro, concentrate, office delivery, single origin, New Orleans style, and even a high pressure processed variety with Brazil nut milk.
Love Grace’s Herbal Energy is a three-flavor line of USDA organic certified high pressure processed beverages that was created to complement its cold-pressed juice lineup. The common theme across the three flavors is described in the tag line “energy and nutrition balanced.”
