There's a large room in the cavernous Maya Tea warehouse on North Flowing Wells Road filled with what looks like stainless steel vats.
If you think they resemble brewing or distilling equipment, you're on the right track.
They're actually giant kettles where Maya Tea, the state's largest tea distributor and one of the largest in the West, is making non-alcoholic craft spirits.
Andrew Stadler, left, and Joey Mejia make a batch of the Philter’s Mezkahl, a zero proof spirit, at the Maya Tea warehouse, 2861 N. Flowing Wells Road. Manish Shah, founder of Maya Tea, started his business by selling tea at local farmers' markets.
"Imagine like whiskey, rum, gin and mezcal, but from a teamaker's perspective," Maya Tea founder and CEO Manish Shah explained. "It tastes like gin, tastes like rum, tastes like whiskey, tastes like mezcal, using adaptogens and steeps and all these other things. Gives you a good feeling, a nice little buzz, because we use nootropics."
Bottles of freshly brewed Philter’s Ruhm await labels at the Maya Tea factory, 2861 N. Flowing Wells Road. Maya Tea is now producing zero proof spirits.
Maya Tea rolled out its line of non-alcoholic spirits last month — purposely misspelled Ruhm, Wiski, Mezkahl and Jynn — that Shah dubbed Philters.
"If you look it up in the English language, (Philter) means magical elixir or love potion," Shah said in early January as the tea company he launched nearly 30 years ago was finishing its first batch of 400 bottles.
In the kettle room, workers were adding a mixture of chicory, oak chips and other flavorings to the Wiski, which Shah said has the same smooth smokiness of its alcohol cousin. The smell from the cooking process was so strong that workers donning hairnets wore face coverings.
The tea was steeped for four hours, then bottled and cooled before it was labeled and packaged for distribution.
Alcoholic spirits take 10 to 12 years to age before they can be distributed; Philters take four.
"A client can come to me and be like, 'I need a pallet tomorrow, okay?' and we can deliver," Shah said. "We really are looking at this as a boutique kind of niche."
Shah came up with the idea for Philters in 2019 as the sober-curious movement was picking up steam especially among Gen Z, the generation that came of legal age in the mid-2010s.
Manish Shah, founder of Maya Tea, talks about the future of his company. "We're just getting started" in the non-alcoholic craft spirits side of the business, "but we've got interest around the country, and a lot of cafes and coffee shops and we've got a couple of chains starting to use it," Shah said. "I just feel like I created this at the right place, right time."
Some of Maya Tea's food service clients — restaurants and coffee shops that drive a significant share of the company's sales — had been asking for a non-caffeinated product to help them create a nighttime business.
"And so we had started noodling about what some tea solutions could be for coffee shops, because that's our primary market," Shah recalled. "Fast forward: There's a pandemic. All hell breaks loose. We have some time, and we start tinkering and we start tinkering, and we make some progress. We get really frustrated. We put it back on the shelf. Make some progress. We get really frustrated. Put it on the shelf, and it was a start to stop, continually."
When they first conceived the idea, Shah and his team had no idea that the interest in non-alcoholic or zero proof beverages would boom as it has.
Nationwide sales last year surpassed a billion dollars driven largely by NA beers. And while spirits and mocktails made up the smallest percentage of those sales, they represented the fast-growing segment — 70% — from 2024-25, according to the consumer database NielsenIQ (NIQ).
Manish Shah, founder of Maya Tea, shows off a bottle of zero proof Mezkahl that his company has started producing in Tucson under the label Philters.
"It is very interesting to me to see this happening and I'll be honest, sometimes you find yourself in the right place at the right time," Shah said. "And I think this is what happened."
Shah's initial thought was to create a non-alcoholic spirit that mimicked the flavor of alcohol but wouldn't require a liquor license to serve.
Each begins with tea that is steeped with various spices and aromatics to recreate the flavor of the alcoholic spirit. Each also has nootropics, a natural or synthetic substance that acts as a stimulant similar to caffeine.
- Lapsang souchong tea, a Chinese black tea known of its distinctive smoky aroma and flavor, was the basis for the Wiski.
- Juniper and aromatic florals bring out the pleasant burn and nuances in Jynn.
- Coriander, lemon and citric acid are among the ingredients in the Mezkahl.
- Aromatics including ginger, anise, cinnamon, cloves and fenugreek combine to create the spiced rum sensation in Philters Ruhm.
"It seemed really interesting for coffee shops," Shah said, noting that they make up a big percentage of his food service clients.
In the month since releasing Philters, Shah said he's seen a growing interest.
"We're just getting started, but we've got interest around the country, and a lot of cafes and coffee shops and we've got a couple of chains starting to use it," Shah said. "I just feel like I created this at the right place, right time. ... This is such a product for our times right now and for our awareness."
Philters are available online at philters.com and at Maya Tea's Transit Tea, 2645 E. Speedway, as well as Tap and Bottle Downtown, 403 N. Sixth Ave., and several other local shops.
