Teem: Pepsi's First Failure In The World Of Lemon Lime Sodas

In the soft drink industry, there is perhaps no greater rivalry than that of PepsiCo vs Coca-Cola. Whether it's down to the different flavors between Coke and Pepsi (via Insider) or measuring which one has more sugar and caffeine per can (via TheSteet), these two soda giants continue to be neck-and-neck for America's most beloved soda drink. But, in the world of soft drinks mainstream and obscure, Coke isn't Pepsi's only rival.

According to The Vintage News, a soft drink manufacturing employee by the name of Charles Leiper Grigg once noticed that, while orange-flavored soda drinks were dominating the market in the 1920s, there was an opening for lemon-lime flavored sodas. It was around this time that Grigg introduced "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Sodas," a soft drink that contained the mood-stabilizing drug lithium, which promised to help improve the user's mood as they drank the citrus-flavored soda. Although lithium-infused lemon-lime soda may not sound familiar today, you'll probably recognize the drink by its more common name 7 Up. 

While the average bottle of 7 Up you buy at the grocery store no longer contains any traces of lithium, the lemon-lime drink still remains popular. Newsweek tells us that it was one of the 10 most popular sodas in the United States as of 2021. Of course, it didn't take Pepsi long to realize that it would have to cater to the 7-Up crowd if it was to corner the market more efficiently. In 1960, Pepsi's answer to 7 Up took to the grocery store.

While Pepsi's plan to enter the citrus soda line may have sounded good on paper, the company would have to go through the king of citrus sodas, 7 Up, first. Pepsi didn't just need a single soda to break into the market — it needed a Teem.

According to Retroist, Teem Soda was released in 1960, although Pepsi was apparently so excited about its new product that free samples were reportedly given out in supermarkets across the country a year before the official release. ClickAmericana tells us that Teem Soda was the end product of four years of research and development and a two-year national "taste test" at select spots across the country. Packaging materials, the bottles, and even the trucks themselves were painted a bright green and yellow, indicating that Teem Soda contained nothing more than pure, refreshing lemon and lime flavors — very similar to Sprite.

Indeed, Pepsi's research and work seemed to be paying off. Throughout the '60s and '70s, Teem Soda was surprisingly popular among the soda-drinking populace. In places where Teem was introduced, Pepsi noticed that customers gave good reviews, made repeat purchases of the product, and there was a noticeable demand for it. Teem Soda certainly appeared like it was demonstrating that PepsiCo could make a successful entry into the world of citrus-flavored soda.

But if that's the case, where's Teem Soda today?

If Teem Soda seemed to be doing pretty well in the '60s to the '70s, why exactly don't we see it anymore? What could have happened to turn it into a relatively obscure soft drink?

According to Retroist, Teem Soda began to dwindle in sales starting around the '80s, until finally being phased out in 1984. From there, Pepsi still attempted to try and make its move into the citrus soda market, perhaps wanting to fill the space Teem left before someone else could take it. These attempts included launching "Slice" soda in 1986, followed by the more familiar Sierra Mist soda sometime in the '90s. 

Sierra Mist remained Pepsi's premier lemon-lime soft drink up until 2023, when PepsiCo announced its newest soda made to be the Sprite killer: "Starry." In fact, CNN reports that Pepsi plans rolling out this new "Gen-Z friendly" soda to supermarkets in January. Starry is meant to pick up where Sierra Mist left off: a direct competitor against Sprite, which is owned by none other than Coca-Cola. A spokesperson told Insider that Starry has a much crisper, "balanced" taste than Sierra Mist, which will appeal to the lemon-lime lovers still wanting a taste of the classic Sierra Mist.

And so, it seems that Sierra Mist joins Teem Soda in the archival halls of PepsiCo, thus restarting the cycle once again.