TRENOS SiGINT: Veggie Tea Drinks Go Savoury Trend

Analyst: Scott Mathias – November, 2025

Signal:

Savoury veggie tea is shaping into a clear micro-category, anchored by real brands already in-market. Millie’s Sipping Broth has made dehydrated vegetable “tea bags” a mainstream, vegan-friendly ritual. GOBBi has built a new lane entirely: caffeinated savoury tea blends designed to replace coffee with tomato, mushroom, miso and green-veg profiles. Numi’s earlier Savory Tea line, with flavours like Broccoli Cilantro (Coriander) and Tomato Mint, now reads like an early prototype for where the category is heading. Together, they form a credible early ecosystem, proof savoury tea is not speculative, it’s emerging.

Human Factor:

Consumers increasingly want warmth, comfort and satiety without the sugar crash or coffee jitters. Veggie tea drinks hit that emotional and physical sweet spot: cosy, savoury, grounding, and guilt-free. For office workers, fasters, students, hospitality staff and busy parents, this is the new “quick fix”, something you sip like tea, but feel like food. Add APAC’s natural cultural fit with savoury broths, dashi notes and vegetable-led infusions, and the human appetite is already primed for this category to outperform here.

TRENOS METRICS SNAPSHOT

Metric	Insight
Signal	Rise of savoury, vegetable-based teas and broth-style drinks as a functional hot-beverage category.
Data Point	Presence of active brands: Millie’s Sipping Broth, GOBBi savoury “energy tea”, Numi’s Savory Tea line; early herbal-veg hybrids across Asia.
TikTok Views	Small but growing niche within fasting, cosy rituals, office productivity and “snack replacement” content clusters.
Retail Footprint	US mass retail for Millie’s; DTC for GOBBi; specialty retailers and wellness channels picking up savoury blends; APAC cafés beginning to test savoury infusions.
Ingredient Format	Dehydrated vegetables, miso, tomato bases, mushroom blends, seaweed, herbs, L-theanine, green coffee extract, fermented vegetable flavours.
Product Range	Tomato basil, tomato harvest, miso cups, mushroom-veggie blends, pumpkin/kumara possibilities, Thai-inspired lemongrass/galangal infusions, APAC seaweed-mushroom variants.
Consumer Segment	Health-focused adults, office workers, intermittent fasters, café regulars, flexitarians, functional-drink seekers.
Brand Origin	Mostly US and boutique wellness brands, but high cultural compatibility with Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand.
Export Status	Early-stage; large opportunity for APAC/ANZ producers to create region-specific formats with global export potential.
Trend Classification	NextGen Tea / Functional Sipping Broth / Veg-Comfort Rituals.
System Pressure Point	Sugar reduction, caffeine moderation, snack replacement, “cosy productivity”, gut health.
Momentum	Building, fuelled by functional beverage growth and consumer boredom with sweet-heavy formats.
Sentiment	Warm, curious, positive — “odd but comforting” quickly becomes “I want this daily.”
Where Signal Is Loudest	US wellness channels, APAC broth cultures, UK cafés, online fasting communities, plant-based drink innovators.
Related Links	https://numitea.com/, https://sipgobbi.com/, https://milliessippingbroth.com/

Long Play Analysis - Veggie Tea Drinks Go Savoury Trend

Global momentum shows savoury vegetable teas are ready to evolve from novelty to category. Millie’s and GOBBi provide structure, a “tea ritual” delivery system consumers intuitively understand, combined with vegetable flavours they already trust from soups and broths. As functional beverages lean deeper into mood, satiety and sugar reduction, savoury tea hits all three with ease.

APAC and ANZ now stand out as the most naturally aligned growth markets. These regions have deep culinary familiarity with kombu, dashi, shiitake, tomato-herb broths, seaweed, ginger, lemongrass, lime, pumpkin, kumara, kawakawa and native herbs, all perfectly suited to a warm sipping format. This geographic advantage isn’t about copying the US, it’s about globalising APAC’s existing savoury flavour DNA in a new beverage form.

The next wave will be driven by cafés, wellness brands and functional beverage makers who recognise the cultural fit, a cross between broth, tea, adaptogens and comfort ritual. With the right packaging, clarity and flavour architecture, veggie tea could rapidly become APAC/ANZ’s next exportable hot-drink movement, a warm, vegetable-rich reset speaking to modern consumers.

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