For the American version, Teas’ Tea uses purified water, high-grade loose tea leaves and vitamin C as its only ingredients. Tea “flavors” range from traditional green tea to green-tea combinations such as rose, lemongrass, and jasmine. The brand also offers traditional Chinese golden oolong tea. Bottles are 500ml to 2 liters and are mostly sold through Whole Foods and other boutique natural food stores.

The product line’s slogan proclaims “Drink for the Self,” alluding to the health benefits of unsweetened real teas (e.g., high antioxidants, no sugar, no calories) and the Japanese traditions of tea as a part of Zen meditation and ceremony. Whether or not Western cultures appreciate the latter concepts, the company certainly stands to benefit from the health connotations.

Visually the brand is distinguished by subtle Japanese imagery, particularly through the use of a woven bamboo-like pattern. Each bottle has its own subtle color palette depending on the type of tea. A darker blue color band (infused with that particular tea’s coloring) is employed for all of the products, giving the entire line a unified look. The color of the tea itself peeks out from the top and bottom of the rectangular bottles, adding light and transparency to the presentation—again, another subtle Asian-inspired touch.

Ito En places its own brand identity in the upper right corner of the product and on top of the white caps. The parent brand’s placement flows rather seamlessly with the rest of the label design. It also complements the “natural/nature” aspects of the brand logo, with its modified, green four-leaf clover.

The only notable design flaw is the use of white-colored fonts over a yellow background on certain sides of the Golden Oolong product—a misstep that renders the product name nearly unreadable.

Competition in the bottled tea category is fierce and increasing. Teas’ Tea competes head-to-head with Tazo, Honest Tea, SoBe, Republic of Tea and Anteadote, among others. Even Lipton is offering more of the “natural” bottled teas, a departure from its traditional American staple. However, with the exception of Anteadote and a few other types of teas, Teas’ Tea is among the rare unsweetened products.

Compared to a reported US$47 billion a year in the carbonated soft drink market, bottled tea sales are extremely modest. However, even the large soft drink makers have looked to the “new age” beverages (including waters and teas) as areas of growth to bolster overall revenues. Sales of all bottled teas are reported to have grown tenfold over the last decade, 20 percent of which was in 2005 alone. That surge is partly due to the publicity generated by new studies on the health benefits of natural teas, which is sure to spark more even more interest going forward.

Alycia de Mesa is a brand identity consultant and writer with over 10 years experience from Fortune 100 to start-up companies. She is author of Before The Brand, the definitive brand identity handbook, published by McGraw-Hill (under the name Alycia Perry).