Faye and I both know your weekly reading can get crowded, so we’ll keep this honest, useful, and hopefully worth your next few minutes.

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This is the first Cloud Note. We’ll use this space to share what we’re building, what we’re learning, what people are telling us, and why we think tea soda deserves its own little corner in the fridge.

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So here it goes.

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Why We’re Starting a Tea Soda Company

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We still love soda.

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The fizz. The can. The first cold sip. The feeling of having something playful in the fridge.

But the idea for Cloud came from our own days.

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I work as a city planner, which means a lot of my day is spent turning complicated ideas into something people can actually understand. Reports, meetings, presentations, community questions, policy details, and plenty of context-switching.

Faye is a registered nurse, so she knows a different kind of intensity: long shifts, night shifts, and moments where staying alert is not optional.

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So we both know what it feels like to reach for whatever keeps you going.

Often it's another coffee. Another heavily caffeinated drink. Or just another sweet drink just to stay awake.

Nothing wrong with any of that. We have been there.

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But as the days get busier, and as the world moves faster, we started to feel like relaxing in our pockets of time was getting harder and harder.

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After a long search on shelves for drinks that could bring a gentler, more sustainable kind of energy, we kept running into the same feeling. Some sodas felt like they were shouting wellness through a megaphone. Some were all glossy colour and loud flavour. Some had an artificial taste. Some leaned too far into sugar.

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Again, nothing wrong with any of that. We just wanted something different. Something we could truly enjoy, and something for people who felt like they were in the same boat.

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That is how we started with a simple idea: a soda that still felt fun, but not frantic. Something bright, but not overwhelming. Something with a gentler lift for the middle of a long day, or the end of an extremely long night shift.

(And yes, picking the right words to describe how this soda should feel and taste is actually how we started.)

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That question eventually became Cloud.

What if soda could stay fun, be brewed in true tea fashion, and leave you with a gentle lift and a little breathing room?

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Why Tea?

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We grew up around tea culture, so tea was never just a flavour to us.

It was origin, aroma, balance, brewing temperature, brew time, and finish. It was the kind of thing people notice before they say anything. And yes, the kind of thing a strict Asian parent quietly judges.

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That standard really really (x100) matters to us.🫡

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A lot of drinks use tea as a minor flavour note. We wanted tea to be the backbone.

All in all, tea gives Cloud its structure. Fruit gives it lift. Bubbles give it fun. Fibre gives it body.

That is the soda we are trying to create.

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What Even Is Tea Soda?

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Most people we talk to have heard of soda. They have heard of tea. They have heard of kombucha. Some have heard of sparkling tea.

But when we say tea soda, a lot of people pause for a second.

Or maybe someone on Reddit has already read about tea soda in a 1980s cookbook.

 

Either way, that is actually exciting.

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Because to us, tea soda is not kombucha. It is not a fermented tea that often comes with a bitter-sour taste. It is not just sparkling tea, where it can feel like tea and carbonated water were simply put together. And it is not a functional drink pretending to be fun.

 

Tea soda is soda built from tea. And for us, the tea itself should come from its origin region, not commercial tea dust or another 18-country blend. (I will share more stories of what is actually a tea soda that we are trying to create in the second blog)

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It keeps the part of soda people love: the cold-can feeling, the fizz, the fruit, and the simple treat. But it starts from tea culture instead of built around industrial flavouring.

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Cloud is our version of that: a fibre tea soda made with single-origin whole-leaf tea, real fruit, good fibre, light bubbles, and just enough sweetness to feel bright without feeling like too much.

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Why Now?

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Maybe simply as passion driven. But to elaborate further, it's because people are choosing drinks differently. (I get it, this section would sounds like cooperate jargon, but hey, maybe you will still enjoy it)

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After researching and interviewing different people, we found that people are looking for  “What moment am I in?” “What do I want this drink to feel like?” and “Does this fit the life I am trying to live?”

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That feels very real to us.

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Some days you want coffee. Some days you want kombucha. Some days you want water. And sometimes you just want a simple treat with a little breathing room (🙌 that's us!).

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Where We Are Now

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We are still early, but we have not been building Cloud in a quiet room by ourselves.

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So far, we have done 100+ idea validations and interviews with people across different ages, jobs, routines, and drink habits. City planners, nurses, designers, café people, baristas, bartenders, office workers, active-living people, tea drinkers, soda drinkers, and many more different people who had no idea what “tea soda” meant until we said it out loud.

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We have tasted 200+ teas and tested more blends than we can honestly remember. Different oolongs. Many many fruit pairings. (Gosh, I hope I can remember how many combinations we have tested in the past year). Different sweetness levels. Different tea strengths. Different ways to make fibre feel smooth instead of heavy.

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The most interesting thing is this:

People may not know what tea soda is yet, but they understand the feeling very quickly.

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They get fibre soda. They get tea soda.

They get the gentle lift. They get that “not every soda has to be loud.”

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That is enough for us to keep going.

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Our first flavours are built around tea first:

- Clementine Oolong starts with Phoenix Dancong oolong, a single-origin whole-leaf tea known for its naturally floral, fruit-like aroma. It meets bright clementine, light bubbles, and a clean finish.

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- Pear GABA starts with GABA Tea, a whole-leaf oolong produced in northern Taiwan and known for its mellow, rounded character. It blends with Black River pear juice, osmanthus, acacia fibre, and light bubbles for a soft, floral tea soda feel.

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Both are still being tested, adjusted, and judged by the only standard that matters:

Would we actually want this in our fridge?

And would a strict Asian parent approve?

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What’s Next?

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We are working toward our first pilot batch.

Not a giant launch. Not a big retail rollout. Just the first real batch made with care, tested with real people, and shared with the early supporters who want to help shape where Cloud goes next.

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If you want early updates, first-batch notes, and the first word on how Cloud might make it to your door, join the First 100. (In the Find Us page) . This would really help us to bring Cloud to your community.

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We are not on shelves yet.

Cloud is still brewing.

But we are getting closer, one can at a time.

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Stay tuned for edition #2 on what Fibre Tea Soda really is.