When Steaz launched its first beverage products back in late 2002, the brand of Doylestown, Pa.-based The Healthy Beverage Co. LLC was working to create a healthy beverage alternative. “We started seeing all of these articles about schools throwing sodas out of vending machines … and we thought we should come up with a true healthy alternative to what’s being kicked out,” recounts Steven Kessler, co-founder of Steaz.

The brand decided to use an organic green tea base to offer consumers the benefits of green tea and Fair Trade ingredients in a great-tasting beverage for health-conscious consumers of all ages, he says. In the past 12 years, the brand developed its product base to create its current lineup of unsweetened, lightly sweetened and zero-calorie ready-to-drink (RTD) iced green tea segments and organic green-tea-based energy drinks.