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Food & Drinks

Category Drink Trends

Drink Trends

Ube Is Having a Global Moment as Purple Yam Drinks Take Over Menus

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Ube, the purple yam long used in Filipino desserts, has spent the last few years building momentum outside its home cuisine, and it’s now landing squarely in drink menus. Ube lattes, milkshakes, and specialty sodas have started showing up at cafes well beyond Filipino bakeries, driven by both its striking color and its mild, subtly sweet, almost vanilla-like flavor.

Why Ube Translates So Well to Drinks

Unlike more polarizing flavors, ube’s taste is gentle enough to pair easily with milk, cream, and other sweeteners without overwhelming a drink. Combined with its naturally vivid purple color, that makes it an easy ingredient for cafes to build an entire visual identity around, a single ube latte can function as its own piece of marketing simply by how it looks in a photo.

From Bakery Staple to Mainstream Menu Item

Ube has long been a fixture in Filipino desserts like ube halaya and ube cake, but its move into beverages marks a shift toward broader mainstream adoption. Larger coffee and tea chains experimenting with purple yam-based drinks signal that the ingredient is being treated less as a niche specialty and more as a flavor with lasting commercial appeal.

Part of a Broader Root Vegetable Wave

Ube’s rise is happening alongside growing interest in other naturally colorful, less processed ingredients being used in drinks, from taro to purple sweet potato. As consumers look for options that feel more natural without sacrificing visual appeal, expect more root-vegetable-based drinks to follow ube’s path onto mainstream menus.

Trying It at Home

Ube extract and frozen ube halaya are increasingly available at Asian grocery stores and online, making it possible to recreate an ube latte or milkshake at home with just a blender and a few basic ingredients.

Drink Trends

Cacao Fruit Sparkling Drinks Are Turning Chocolate Waste Into a Refreshing Sip

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Chocolate production has always involved a surprising amount of waste. Only the beans inside the cacao pod are typically used to make chocolate, while the fruit’s pulp, tangy, faintly tropical, and naturally sweet, is usually discarded. A growing number of drink brands are now rescuing that pulp and turning it into sparkling beverages, and the resulting drinks have started building real momentum.

From Byproduct to Beverage

The pulp surrounding cacao beans has a flavor profile that’s been compared to a mix of lychee, citrus, and passionfruit, distinct from chocolate itself. Brands using it for sparkling drinks are essentially unlocking a flavor that most people have never tasted, since the fruit rarely makes it out of the chocolate supply chain in its original form.

A Sustainability Story That Sells

Beyond the novel taste, these drinks come with a built-in sustainability narrative: using a fruit that would otherwise be discarded reduces waste in the chocolate industry while creating a new revenue stream for cacao farmers. That story has resonated with consumers who are increasingly drawn to products with a clear environmental angle, especially when the product itself is genuinely good.

Where It Fits in the Drinks Market

Cacao fruit sodas are landing at a moment when consumers are already gravitating toward functional and better-for-you beverages, sparkling drinks with natural fruit flavor, lower sugar content, and an interesting origin story. That positioning has helped the category find shelf space alongside kombucha, sparkling waters, and other alt-soda options.

What to Expect Next

As more chocolate makers look for ways to reduce waste and diversify their offerings, expect cacao fruit to show up in more products beyond sparkling drinks, including juices, syrups, and even cocktail mixers, as the ingredient moves from a manufacturing byproduct to a flavor in its own right.

Drink Trends

Build-Your-Own Drinks: Why Everyone Is Customizing Their Matcha and Coffee

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If you’ve spent any time on social video recently, you’ve probably seen it: someone carefully layering milk, matcha, and syrup into a glass, or reciting a long, highly specific coffee shop order built from menu hacks. Customized, build-your-own drinks have become one of the most consistent trends across both home and cafe culture.

The Appeal of Total Control

Part of what’s driving the trend is a desire for control and personalization. Rather than ordering a standard drink off a menu, people are treating both coffee and matcha as a kind of build-a-base project, choosing their own milk, sweetener, ratios, and mix-ins to create something that feels uniquely theirs.

Matcha’s Aesthetic Moment

Matcha in particular has become a favorite for this kind of content because of how visual the preparation process is. The vivid green powder, the whisking, the slow pour over ice or milk, all of it lends itself naturally to satisfying, slow-paced video. Home matcha setups, complete with dedicated whisks and bowls, have become their own kind of aspirational purchase.

Coffee Shop Hacks

On the coffee side, customers have turned ordering into a creative act, combining existing menu items in unofficial ways to create entirely new drinks. These hacks spread quickly because they’re easy to replicate, anyone can walk into a cafe and repeat the same order, which has made them a reliable source of recurring content.

What It Means for Cafes

Some coffee and tea chains have leaned into the trend by officially adding popular customer-created combinations to their menus, or by promoting build-your-own formats directly. As customization becomes more expected, expect more brands to design menus and packaging specifically with this kind of personalization in mind.

Drink Trends

Frozen Fruit Snacks Are Booming: Meet the Brands Behind the Trend

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Frozen snacking is having a real moment, and fruit is at the center of it. Brands built around frozen fruit, whether coated in chocolate, dipped in candy shells, or simply flash-frozen for a satisfying bite, have gone from niche freezer-aisle finds to some of the fastest-growing products in the snack category.

The Rise of “Permissible Indulgence”

Much of the appeal comes down to positioning. These products sit in a sweet spot between a treat and a healthier snack, fruit dipped in chocolate feels indulgent, but it’s still fruit. That framing, often described in the industry as “permissible indulgence,” has helped frozen fruit snacks win over shoppers who want something that feels a little more virtuous than a candy bar.

Brands to Know

Frozen candy-and-fruit brand Fruit Riot built early buzz through social media before expanding from the U.S. into international retailers. Chocolate-covered fruit specialist Trü Frü has followed a similar path, and mochi ice cream brand Little Moons has introduced smaller, snackable formats to meet demand for grab-and-go portions. Newer entrants like Froot Pops have also drawn investor attention, a sign that the category is expected to keep growing rather than fade as a passing fad.

Why It’s Spreading So Fast

Frozen fruit snacks are practically built for video: the crack of a chocolate shell, the frost on the fruit, the bright colors against a freezer backdrop. That visual appeal has made them a natural fit for the same kind of unboxing and taste-test content that helped drive earlier viral snack trends.

What’s Next

As more retailers add shelf space for frozen fruit snacks, expect more flavor variations, tropical fruits, spicy-sweet coatings, and mini or bite-sized formats designed for on-the-go snacking. It’s a trend that manages to tap into two things shoppers consistently want: something that feels healthier, and something that photographs well.