HopTea: 'We're here to create an entirely new beverage category'

05-Dec-2018 - Last updated on 28-Sep-2021 at 13:05 GMT

HopTea - winner of the BevNET Live Winter 2018 New Beverage Showdown competition - is a lightly carbonated unsweetened tea flavored with hops, a new beverage concept designed to appeal to tea drinkers and beer lovers.

The brainchild of Boulder, CO-based co-founders Dean Eberhardt and Andrew Markley, HopTea contains zero calories, zero sugar, and zero alcohol, and is made from three ingredients: Water, tea, and hops, said Eberhardt, who caught up with FoodNavigator-USA at BevNET Live.

Eberhardt, who had his Eureka moment on day 25 of a Whole30 diet plan ("I really wanted a beer and I couldn't have one"), launched 16oz cans of HopTea (MSRP $2.99) in May at a farmer's market in Denver, before securing listings at Rocky Mountain Whole Foods stores in September.

And so far, HopTea is appealing to tea and craft beer fans, claimed Eberhardt, who describes it as "a cool new type of tea, not a non-alcoholic beer... It's hoppy on the nose, and forward with the hops, but it finishes like a tea."

He added: "It resonates particularly well with millennials and foodies."

Checkout our trendspotting gallery from BevNET Live Winter 2018, which was held in Santa Monica, California.