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As the 20th century marched towards its denouement amidst seismic events like the Fall of Communism and the end of Apartheid, the soda world also saw titanic shifts.
The once-dominant lemon-lime drink Teem, while still a beloved brew from Brazil to Nigeria, found its international ambitions stifled by geopolitics, withdrawing from strongholds in Asia and Europe.
Meanwhile, the sugary beverage industry's landscape irrevocably changed as corporations like PepsiCo and 7 Up's parent company subsumed smaller regional bottlers via high-profile mergers.
Though still clinging to devotees scattered worldwide, by the dawn of the millennium Teem slipped towards also-ran status as rivals set their sights on global soda supremacy.
In the year 1959, on the cusp of a new decade brimming with cultural change, the Pepsi-Cola Company stealthily endeavored to formulate a lemon-lime soda to rival the dominant 7 Up.
Under cloak and dagger, their chemists toiled secretly on "Project Duet," but scarcely had the espionage commenced when trademark troubles transformed the title—a rival food manufacturer produced a margarine dubbed Duet, necessitating rapid alteration.
Project Duet become christened Teem, destiny and nomenclature intertwining as the citrus sip soon sated customers in Missouri, Canada, and beyond.
On the spring day of April 10th, 1959, St. Joseph, Missouri found itself the site of an intriguing new product's public debut—a citrusy, amber-hued soft drink dubbed Teem.
Representatives of the Pepsi-Cola Company, galvanized by their beverage's clandestine development, chose the humble city to conduct history's first taste test of their lemon-lime soda.
Their motley crew converged eagerly, inviting locals for inaugural sips to gauge the public palate, three curious Pepsi men awaiting the verdict on a drink that would soon quench thirst countrywide.
Scarcely 72 hours later, success cemented and flavors approved, advertisements extolling Teem's tart refreshment bloomed across St. Joseph's papers.
For over two decades, Teem's tangy effervescence flowed freely from bottles and cans across the United States and Canada, quenching consumers' thirst at grocery stores and gas stations alike.
Yet by 1984, the soda's once-steady stream had slowed to a trickle, displaced in the public's preference by ascendant rival citrus beverages.
Bereft of robust sales figures and confronting consumer indifference, the Powers-That-Be at Pepsi HQ reluctantly discontinued their lemon-lime fighter, conceding defeat amidst the ongoing Cola Wars.
Though banished from store shelves, vestiges of Teem's decades-long legacy lingered on—loyal soda jerks continued offering it on tap at old-fashioned fountains into the 1990s, preserving for a dwindling clientele the soda now evanescing from public memory.
By the final decade of the 20th century, the once-obscure soft drink Teem could be found gracing the shelves and satisfying the thirsts of most lands across the globe, from tropical climes to tundra-kissed territories.
Yet even as it reached new international apexes, its fountain flow began ebbing in established markets abroad.
In Nippon, the Earth's East, vending machines that once poured out frosty Teem now fizzed with new Italianate labels.
So too in the peninsular kingdom of Korea where, alongside the Aegean reaches of Turkey, ancient home of Helen's visage, did Teem meet replacement by analogues—yet not outright rivals, for the ascendant beverages hailed from PepsiCo's constellation of allied bottling partners.
Though vanquished from its native shores, Teem retained devotees scattered across the globe even as the millennium dawned.
In lands both flourishing and struggling, the lemon-lime libation flowed on - quaffed in the sambaing South American nations of Brazil and Uruguay.
Sipped in steamy Central American environs like famed banana republic Honduras.
Downed by Sherpas amid Nepal's vertiginous peaks.
Even in Africa’s most populous bastion, Nigeria, and on Indian subcontinent streets still shaking off the raj's rule alike, do Teem bottles receive ongoing thirsty patronage.
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