Toby Howell

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Do you ever find yourself craving some caffeine but don't want to commit to a full coffee?

Matcha tastes too much like grass.

Water is boring.

Too early for a beer.

Perhaps a refresher is the beverage that you're looking for.

And it's the rise of the refresher category that I want to talk about on today's edition of Toby's Trends.

A quick refresher on what a refresher is.

It's sort of whatever you want it to be.

There are two essential components, according to Alyssa Bute-Kofer, who leads marketing at McDonald's.

One, they are cold.

And two, they come in vibrant colors.

They are very Instagrammable.

The base of a refresher can be anything from a lemonade to a green tea.

Sometimes they have carbonation in them.

Other times there's caffeine involved.

It's almost easier to say what a refresher is not, says Claire Conahan, a trendologist at Data Central.

It is not a coffee or a tea.