Brands keep trying to find pathways into a beverage segment that keeps growing during tight financial times even though it's pricey: energy drinks and energy shots.

Celestial Seasonings is bringing one of the latest innovations to the category: energy shots that are "all-natural," as befitting the better-for-you pedigree of the tea brand that has been owned by natural-foods leader Hain for the last several years.

Enerji Green Tea Energy Shots expand on Celestial Seasonings' earlier launch in in the category, Kombucha Energy Shots, which are based on the appeal of cultured kombucha drinks to foodies.

"We felt we had an ideal brand for this category because of the long-term trust in our brand and the high-quality ingredients we could come in with," Blake Waltrip, CMO for Celestial Seasonings, told brandchannel.

Energji features green tea, B-vitamins and ginseng, common ingredients to "natural" energy drinks, and come in three flavors: Berry, Citrus and Pomegranate Xtreme. "We're extending into links that have logical ties back to the core of what the Celestial Seasonings brand is all about," Waltrip said.Continue reading...

First it was green tea. Then it was ginseng tea. Now the latest craze in the organic beverage world is kombucha tea, which "is showing signs of turning into a gold mine for some companies," according to The New York Times.

Kombucha is unusual because it is a fermented tea. In fact, kombucha home brewers are a special breed who share recipes and swap fermented cultures. The "Kombucha Exchange" is a worldwide online forum where brewers list "babies" – smaller portions of the tea that split off from starter tea, called "the mother" – available for sale or given away free.

But kombucha has become a commercial sensation as well. GT's Kombucha, one of the leading brands, was started by a home brewer named GT Dave in California. More than a million bottles of GT's Kombucha were sold in the United States last year. Now branded kombucha seems to be popping up everywhere. Carpe Diem and Honest Tea offer bottled versions of kombucha, and Yogi makes a version of kombucha in tea bags.Continue reading...