Lazy Bear
by Lazy Bear Foods Inc.
Review: Lazy Bear Cascara Tea
Covers Products: Lemon Agave Cascara Tea, Mint Cascara Tea, Natural Cascara Tea
Lazy Bear is a line of cascara, which, as we’ve explained in reviews of other cascara beverages, is a product brewed using the fruit that surrounds the coffee bean. The product is currently available in three flavors, two of which have no added sugar: Natural, Mint, and Lemon Agave.
For this particular brand, they have specifically called the product a “tea,” which should hopefully help address what type of product this is and where it should be placed at retail. It’s also a pretty good descriptor for what’s inside the bottle. The flavor profile definitely has some clear similarities to tea and we’d describe it as tasting like black tea mixed with rooibos. It has some natural sweetness, a slightly tannic flavor, and an earthy finish.
All three of the flavors are very drinkable -- to the point where we honestly don’t have a personal favorite. However, we do think that the Lemon Agave is probably the most marketable if, for no other reason, that it offers the consumer a familiar secondary flavor. Otherwise, these products are low in calories, with 30-45 per bottle, and contain 55 mg of caffeine, which might also help with the marketability of the product.
Lazy Bear is packaged in a slim 12 oz. glass bottle, which is similar to other products in the tea and tea alternative spaces. The design is playful and clean, with illustrated graphics and a single accent color to go with each of the three flavors. It’s intuitive in as much as you can quickly figure out that it’s cascara, but it doesn’t necessarily give the consumer enough info to figure out what that means (they’ve added copy “brewed from the fruit of the coffee cherry”). We’d also like to see a more prominent callout for the caffeine content as that’s something that we like to see for any product that contains caffeine.
In the end, Lazy Bear faces a similar issue that has been a challenge for brands selling things like guayusa and yerba mate: it’s hard to quickly explain a new concept and make the consumer feel comfortable enough to pick this up over what’s already a known entity in a bottle of tea (which may be sitting right next to this product on the shelf). However, we think that they’ve done an admirable job of putting their best foot forward, both in terms of flavor and the overall look of the product. It’s definitely a product that will stack up quite nicely against other products entering the market with a cascara beverage.