The journey
What is Tea Branch?
Tea Branch is an iced tea brand that also serves to promote healthy eating, sustainability, and wellness. With a focus on great taste and flavour over sugar, Tea Branch iced tea is the best up-and-coming low-sugar alternative to fizzy drinks and juices. The organic blend of fresh fruits, herbs, and honey brewed with tea is what makes Tea Branch iced tea so uniquely refreshing.
How It Started
I aimed to shed my excess fat by eating better but I couldn't force myself to change my diet all at once, so I started with a small change: drinking less sugar. I tried drinking only water for a week - I couldn't even make it halfway. I tried drinking water with lemon juice, which at least saw better consistency, but I couldn't keep that up forever. I even tried watering down juices and iced teas because I missed the taste of a sweet beverage, but the water compromised the taste and they tasted too sweet without it.
-
There wasn't a single shop nearby that sold the kind of drink I wanted. So, I learned how to make my very own organic, nutritious, delicious iced tea, flavoured with herbal infusions and fruit juice, sweetened with honey. I perfected two flavours, the Lavender Mint Zest and the Passion Apple Bliss. I wanted to know what others thought of the flavours. Friends, family, my neighbours and my colleagues all enjoyed my iced tea. I was curious to know who else enjoyed them...
Test-Trading
Throughout the summer of 2023, I test-traded Tea Branch iced tea at events, food festivals and trade markets to determine its appeal. I couldn't believe how much my iced tea was welcomed and well-received by others. Customers would tell me their favourite of the two and why. They told me about their own fitness and health journeys, the different diets they tried, the lifestyle changes they made to improve their wellbeing, the food products they no longer buy, the ones they buy instead and the ones they still seek. Customer feedback effectively confirmed I had achieved the aims and hopes I have for my iced tea.
-
Firstly, Tea Branch iced tea is the beverage that many customers have been looking for. Many were hooked by the unique taste, even saying that it actually tastes like iced tea unlike certain other popular iced tea brands. I collected first and lasting impressions of the iced tea by having customers write an adjective, any adjective they believed best described the taste of the iced tea on the back of a wood-carved logo, and I colour-coded it with the Lavender Mint Zest feedback written in green and the Passion Apple Bliss in blue.
Secondly, customers were especially drawn to the promise of a healthier alternative to sugary soft drinks and juices. Sweetened with honey and flavoured with fruits and herbs, even "soft" vegans couldn't resist.
Lastly, Tea Branch iced tea is proven to be the iced tea for people that don't like iced tea. I have had several interactions with customers that began with them approaching the stall, reading the words "iced tea" then telling me they don't like or usually drink iced tea. Whenever someone did that, I would offer a free sample of each flavour, just out of curiosity. "They didn't like iced tea, but did they like my iced tea?" I thought. After a free sample, some said they liked it and others actually bought a serving of the flavour they preferred. So, yeah. They liked my iced tea.
How It's Going
Tea Branch iced tea is still being test-traded across the UK at spring and summer events. If you'd like to know where, please follow the Tea Branch socials via the links below.
In the meantime, I aim to bottle Tea Branch iced tea to make it available all year round.
Sustainability
Tea Branch values sustainability. The ingredients for the iced tea are locally sourced. The plastic cups, lids and straws are PLA plastic, which is compostable and has eco-friendly production methods. Please remember to always recycle, or at least as often as you can.