Pure Leaf's Brick Partnership Pairs Product and Habit to Support Everyday Focus

Pure Leaf is turning a tea break into something more literal: a break from your phone. The brand’s new Mental Focus line pairs a sparkling iced tea with a physical, phone-blocking coaster built alongside Brick, pushing the idea of digital disconnection out of one-off experiences and into everyday routines. It’s a subtle shift, but a telling one. Across the beverage category, brands are moving past the neon, high-caffeine era toward products that fit more naturally into daily life. PepsiCo has seen growing demand for options that offer functional benefits without asking consumers to rethink their entire routine. For a busy, overstimulated audience, that often means low-effort ways to stay focused.

Zach Harris, Vice President and General Manager of the Pepsi Lipton Partnership for North America, oversees a $3 billion-plus ready-to-drink tea portfolio and helps shape marketing across PepsiCo’s beverage business. With more than two decades at the company, spanning Mountain Dew, Bubly, and LIFEWTR, he views Mental Focus as Pure Leaf’s first meaningful move into functional territory. The team built the idea around a basic question: what does daily life actually look like for their consumers?

"People don't just want to focus more, they want to reduce distractions in their daily lives. Studies show it takes 30 minutes to fully refocus after a distraction. That is what led us to partner with Brick," says Harris. That tension shows up across the category. The rise of "soft wellness" points to a simple shift: people want to feel better without overhauling their routines, even as their days stay busy and always-on. Functional beverages have become one way to bridge that gap, though much of the growth still leans toward high energy and intensity. With Mental Focus, Pure Leaf leans into a more familiar lane. The product combines real brewed iced tea with naturally occurring caffeine and added L-theanine, offering a lighter, more integrated way to promote focus.

Built for busy lives

Instead of chasing another energy drink play, the brand wanted a tea-first option that could support focus in a quieter, everyday way. To bring that insight to life, Pure Leaf tapped Olympic gymnast and UCLA senior Jordan Chiles as the face of the launch. Chiles balances elite competition with college classes, business commitments, and media obligations. She's a high-profile example of the heavy workloads many younger consumers recognize, which Harris says makes her a natural fit. He points to her packed calendar full of UCLA coursework, NCAA championships, and a recent stint on Dancing with the Stars as a real-world example of the life stage Mental Focus targets.

Just as important is the way Chiles approaches focus, not as a constant state of high intensity, but as something she resets and recalibrates throughout the day. "Whenever I'm drinking Mental Focus, it's like I'm on a tropical island," she says. "I want something that can get my days going, allow me to reset, and feel good about myself going into anything that I'm doing." She also brings a genuine connection to the brand. Chiles grew up with Pure Leaf in her family fridge, with her father regularly grabbing the tea while out and about. "I grew up with Pure Leaf always in my refrigerator because my dad always drank tea. Whenever we would go to a gas station or a store, he would get a Pure Leaf. It's a full-circle moment."

A coaster with a job

For Harris and his team, addressing this emerging need also meant looking directly at a common workplace friction: digital distractions. Rather than fighting that fatigue with more stimulus, consumers are actively searching for small, intentional breaks. That practical reality led Pure Leaf to partner with Brick, a digital wellness tool designed to temporarily block distracting apps and websites. Together, they created the Pure Leaf Mental Focus Dock: a custom coaster that holds a Mental Focus can on top and the Brick device underneath. The idea is simple. Put your phone on the dock, let Brick limit your app access, and take a few minutes with your drink. It's a small, analog routine designed to make the promise of reduced distractions tangible.

Such physical routines mirror a growing trend among other big brands experimenting with analog experiences. Many marketers are finding that these tactile efforts cut through a market where much of the activity is digital. Harris sees the Brick partnership as a way to facilitate that exact type of break. "We asked, 'How do we create experiences that support small, meaningful moments throughout the day?'" he notes. "This is about small, bite-sized ways that can bring you back to focus."

Testing the next move

From a CPG perspective, tying a drink to a new consumer habit is part of an evolution in how some large beverage makers are adapting. Harris views the launch as a tactical test of how well the brand can translate raw data into a physical experience. "In today's world, it is pretty easy to get consumer insights because we hear from consumers on social media," he says. "There's a lot of data, there's a lot of insights out there. It's really about distilling those and really delivering a product that delivers for your consumer."

In practical terms, success for Mental Focus will be measured in familiar ways. Harris notes the team is focused first on awareness where partnerships with Brick and Chiles are designed to play a role, then on trial and repeat. If consumers add Mental Focus to their routines, the bet is that they will come back for the taste even as they experiment with the rituals around it, like using the dock to carve out brief, distraction-free windows.

Looking ahead, Harris says Pure Leaf will watch how this initial launch performs before deciding where to take the platform next, whether that means new flavors or additional functional benefits. Any future innovation will stay "tea-first and ingredient-led," with the brand cautious about stretching beyond what is authentic to its base. Ultimately, he frames Mental Focus as one step in a longer journey to keep the Pure Leaf portfolio aligned with changing expectations. "We're really proud of this foray into functional beverages, how it continues to reiterate what Pure Leaf stands for, and how we're really striving and continuing to meet the needs of our evolving consumer," he concludes.