The beverage aisle turned into a wellness clinic this year. Cans promising gut support, bottles claiming faster hydration than water, sachets promoting calm focus, all stacked next to the checkout. Every summer, the numbers grow, and more people are reaching for anything that isn’t plain water to quench their thirst. British multinational grocery Tesco was founded in 1919, but only recently reported 175% year-on-year volume growth in hydration and electrolyte products, with its electrolyte range expanding from 10 products to 38 since late 2024. That’s nearly four times as many lines in under two years (since late 2024).
The UK-based retailer’s own buying team points directly at the same driver that we’ve been tracking: What’s the deal with the popularity behind the “loaded water” trend taking over TikTok communities like #WaterTok? And what do these mass market trends teach us? Most likely this shift suggests that the electrolyte frenzy has moved from a sports-nutrition, post-workout staple to an everyday, reach-for-it-anytime in place of a soft drink purchase for the average consumer.
But something even more strange is happening here… and it’s part of a larger cultural shift. “Functional beverages” broadly — encompassing gut-health drinks, electrolyte drinks, adaptogen drinks, and the like — are projected to surpass $200 billion globally within the coming decade. According to marketing insights from industry researchers like Innova, demand has steadily accelerated across social media virality and preventative-health culture, and this is no longer a niche. It's the beverage industry's biggest upset in a generation.
And yet, a lot of what's going viral under the “hydration” umbrella isn't actually hydrating us. The most liked and shared so-called “hydration drinks” on platforms like TikTok, from dirty sodas to matcha lattes, are sugary, overly caffeinated. What’s troublesome is that they don’t contain nearly enough sodium or potassium, making them pretty shabby at the one job they're supposed to do.
The Grand Rise of the Stack
First it was #WaterTok: sugar-free syrups and colored powder sticks turning plain water into “mermaid water.” Then came Loaded Water, an electrolyte base topped with fresh citrus and a pinch of pink Himalayan salt, sipped from a 40oz Stanley tumbler that’s become as much a personality signal as a hydration tool. Now it’s Stacked Water?! Electrolytes, collagen peptides, protein, sometimes creatine, all get layered into one drink, each add-in promising a separate benefit. A typical stack might pull from an electrolyte powder, a splash of prebiotic soda, fresh citrus, and “the salt trick,” a measured pinch of sea salt to mimic commercial sodium ratios without synthetic dyes. In other words, what every mother and grandmother in almost every corner of the Earth has done for thousands of years without filming herself doing it! It’s colorful, it’s photogenic, and it’s genuinely reshaping what people buy. Functionally, though, six or seven ingredients are showing off by doing a handful of jobs that a much shorter list could cover.
Not Every Viral Drink Hydrates
While #WaterTok pushes electrolytes and minerals, an entirely different set of TikTok drinks has gone viral under the same broad "wellness beverage" umbrella, and by at least one industry analysis, they're doing the opposite job. A 2026 report from a hydration supplement company ranked Dirty Soda, Espresso Lemonade, Whipped Iced Coffee, Pistachio Latte, and Matcha Latte as the most popular TikTok drinks worst for hydration, citing low sodium and potassium alongside high sugar and caffeine as the culprits.
Matcha Latte alone reportedly draws over 3.7 million monthly recipe searches. We’re citing this with an asterisk because it comes from a company that also sells a competing electrolyte product, so treat the specific rankings as directional, not clinical. But the underlying mechanism is not wrong: The Cleveland Clinic has noted that excess sugar can reduce hydration efficiency and contribute to energy crashes, and caffeine in high doses is a known mild diuretic.
You could definitely argue that most single trendy drinks aren’t dangerous. Still, “trending in the hydration conversation” and “actually hydrating” are two very different things, and the algorithm doesn’t distinguish between them. But now you can.
Nature’s OG Hydration Drinks
Before any of this had a hashtag, traditional whole-food hydration recipes were already doing the job these aesthetically pleasing water trends are desperately chasing.
Coconut water has one of the most favorable natural potassium-to-sodium ratios of any beverage, hence why it’s been used across the tropics as a rehydrating drink for generations.
Chia fresca (or agua de limon con chia) — chia soaked in water with lime and a touch of sweetener — is a Mexican and Central American staple, a simple recipe prized and passed down for the mucilage that forms around soaked chia, a soluble fiber that slows how fast fluid moves through the digestive tract rather than flushing straight through.
Agua de jamaica, hibiscus steeped into a tart, ruby-red infusion, is a daily ritual across Mexican and West African households. Plus, hibiscus is rich in polyphenols and has been shown in human trials to raise circulating antioxidant levels while reducing markers of oxidative stress.
What separates a whole plant from a powder stack? Not just mineral content. It’s the matrix of fiber, antioxidants, and trace cofactors that the actually body uses alongside the minerals themselves, instead of an isolated compound dissolved into water.
Hello, Adaptogens!
The third leg of the 2026 functional beverage boom, alongside gut health and hydration, is adaptogens, such as Ashwagandha, Reishi, and Maca, all of which are now showing up in beverages aimed at stress and focus rather than fluid balance. The NIH’s own fact sheet notes that Ashwagandha has been studied for its potential role in helping the body regulate cortisol and manage stress, which is a large part of why brands built around calm-not-caffeine positioning have found an audience alongside the sober-curious movement. Reality check: This “new” category is one traditional herbalism has occupied for centuries. Ashwagandha arrived with Ayurveda, not with a flashy beverage brand making big promises behind each can.
Learn more and explore our Adaptogens collection here.
Deciphering the Hydration Paradox
So what does someone actually need? A BBC explainer on the electrolyte trend spoke with Kerry Torrens, a registered nutritionist, who put it plainly: most people don't need electrolyte supplements at all, because “our kidneys work to keep our electrolyte levels stable and we can usually top up these minerals through the foods we eat” (Source: BBC). Unless you’re recovering from an illness or are dangerously dehydrated, a genuinely varied diet, which includes fruit, vegetables, dairy, nuts, seeds, and lean meat (or a mix of comparable non-meat sources of the same nutrients) already supplies the sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium a stacked tumbler is trying to reintroduce so the body can function properly.
The same piece spoke with Graeme Close, Professor of Human Physiology at Liverpool John Moores University, who offered the actual use case: For the average gym-goer doing less than an hour, electrolyte drinks aren't “an essential component of an everyday gym bag.” The broader science on oral rehydration wholly agrees: sodium paired with a carbohydrate source does help the body retain fluid more efficiently than water alone, which is exactly why the formulation matters more than the fact that “electrolytes” are present at all.
The real hydraditon paradox is that most people need to intake less electrolytes than they think, and what their bodies crave most is often sitting in the world’s oldest, simplest medicinal brew: a simple cup of tea. Our Mineral Tea infusion blend transforms that same ancient herbal wisdom into a nourishing daily ritual that replenishes key minerals in one step. Just add water.
