The Tea on Jinx’s Relaunch
Jinx Tea launched as a food truck in 2018, opened a Minneapolis tea bar in 2019, and started packaging its premium tap teas in crowlers a year later, just to see if cafes and grocery stores would be interested. They were.
“I originally thought we’d be a storefront brand,” says co-founder Chris Eilers, who had been down this road before as the co-founder of Dunn Brothers Coffee. “Covid showed us other ways we could grow.”
Jinx closed its Minneapolis storefront in late 2023 and updated its branding, with an eye to becoming a premium beverage brand in the “functional” drink category, which means it offers a benefit like energy or nutrients. “We feel like we’re pioneering a category,” says Eilers.
Now sold in 160 Minnesota grocery stores, cafes, and taprooms, Jinx plans to go national in 2025. In a crowded beverage case, the can is essential to educating consumers. Eilers walks us through the design process.
The functional beverage market topped $164 million in 2023 and is expected to surpass $277 million by 2033.—Future Market Insights
The Story
The back of the can includes details about the Jinx tea-making process and the signature of a farmer to emphasize the brand’s partnership with tea masters in China.
Logo
Jinx seized the moment to tweak its logo and tagline, “Cleverly crafted drinks,” with national expansion in mind. “The key is having the right designers involved at the right time,” Eilers says. Jinx worked with Jeff Johnson of Minneapolis-based Replace, which has designed several food and drink labels, including JonnyPops.
Bright Colors
“A lot of beverages fall into a generic white background with color logo. We wanted to stand out on the shelf.”
Bubbles
The bubbles rising above the fruit in the illustration are intended to indicate that Jinx Teas are lightly carbonated.
Fruit Illustrations
“We wanted to communicate how premium Jinx is by showing the ingredients.”
Recipe
“There’s iced tea, there’s hot tea, there’s bubble tea. But no one is doing something fun and innovative,” Eilers says. Jinx Teas are made with “culinary-level flavors” including bold spices, delicate herbal infusions, and teas sourced around the world, in a process that Eilers says extracts maximum flavor from the tea and maximizes the ingredients’ health benefits. They are lightly sweetened with pure cane sugar.
Hand-painted
“We wanted it to have a crafty feel to it.”
“Chobani snuck up on Yoplait, creating a category within the yogurt category. Jinx Tea is that kind of brand. No one is doing what we’re doing. We’re going to sneak up on people.”
—Chris Eilers, co-founder, Jinx Tea
