Ready-to-drink (RTD) tea is one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing categories, and Bangkok, Thailand sits at its centre. A local wellness brand wanted to launch a line of herbal and iced teas — chrysanthemum, lemongrass, roselle — with clean-label positioning and no artificial preservatives. zoolinked mechanical delivered the turnkey extraction-to-bottle line.
The core engineering challenge for RTD tea is flavour extraction and clarity: pull enough aroma and colour from botanicals, then filter out the fines so the product stays bright on the shelf.
Project Overview
From Botanical to Bottle
RTD tea lives or dies on two things: a repeatable extraction and a stable, bright liquid. We built the line around both.
- Hot reflux extraction & concentration pulls consistent flavour/colour from dried botanicals.
- Powder-liquid blending standardises sweetness and acidity per recipe.
- Rotary vibrating screen filtration removes tea fines that cause haze and sediment.
- Glass-bottle hot-fill preserves the product without chemical preservatives.
Process Flow
- RO water treatment — tea flavour is 99% water, so quality starts here.
- Hot reflux extraction & concentration of botanicals.
- Powder-liquid blending to recipe.
- Sanitary storage tanks.
- Vibrating screen filtration for clarity.
- Glass-bottle 3-in-1 hot-fill.
- Shrink-sleeve labelling + CIP cleaning.
Launching an RTD or herbal tea brand?
Equipment Configuration
Commissioning & Training
Installed and commissioned in 18 working days. Training focused on extraction consistency, filtration maintenance and hot-fill — the levers of clean-label tea quality.
Results & ROI
Conclusion
This Bangkok line proves that clean-label RTD tea is achievable at scale when extraction, filtration and hot-fill are engineered together — no preservatives required.
Build your RTD herbal tea line.
