Is sparkling coffee the next carbonated drink trend?

In the US and Europe, sweet sugary drinks aren't selling as well as they used to. In response, the big bottlers are scrambling to come up with new formulas that play to more contemporary tastes. In the past few years, sparkling fruit juices became one of the fastest-growing sub-categories within the fizzy drinks market. And last year, sodas with half the sugary sweetness started to take hold and will probably hit a tipping point in 2014. One of the most intriguing new drinks we've seen lately is IKKI, a strangely named ready-to-drink sparkling coffee that's also trendy for being made by way of "ethical" manufacturing and without artificial ingredients. Sold in a can and meant to be quaffed cold, the drink is looking to fill the niche between sodas and energy drinks. Whether this product will fly off the shelves is yet to be determined, but it fits in with a current trend to reinvent traditional sodas in an age in which drinking bubbly flavored sugar waters is going out of style. Watch this space.