Tired? Wired? Can’t Focus? There’s a Pouch for That - VICE
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At some point, the little pouch tucked under your lip stopped being just about nicotine.
Ultra already sells one for focus and another for sleep. Now it’s launching an Energy pouch with 180mg of caffeine in each one, which feels like the logical next step in the Zyn-ification of basically everything. There’s no nicotine or tobacco in any of them. No sugar or calories either.
The company launched in May 2025 and says it has already sold 5.4 million cans. Ultra also says it’s on pace to bring in more than $100 million during its first full year in business, and it recently raised $11 million. NFL quarterbacks Joe Burrow and Dak Prescott are investors, and the brand says more than 500 professional athletes use its products.
Those are Ultra’s numbers, obviously. But they do make one thing clear: people, especially high-performing ones, are apparently very willing to put things under their lips.
Ultra’s Energy pouch is pretty easy to understand compared with some of the brand’s other formulas. Each pouch has 180mg caffeine, 10mg L-theanine, 10mg niacin, 2mg vitamin B6, and 2mcg B12. Vitamins C and E are in there too. It comes in Wintergreen, Sweet Mint, and Black Cherry flavors—similar to nicotine pouches.
It’s the caffeine part that matters, though. A single pouch has enough to put it in the same general territory as a strong energy drink, except there’s no drink involved. No can taking space on your desk, no giant bottle in the car cupholder, and no overpriced coffee you forgot about until it turned cold.
Ultra says the pouches are designed to kick in faster than coffee and feel smoother, with less of a crash. I’d still take that as the company’s pitch rather than a universal outcome. Caffeine hits people differently, and 180mg is not a tiny dose.
The 10mg L-theanine is there because caffeine-and-theanine combinations have become popular in energy and nootropic products. B vitamins are familiar too. None of that is especially exotic. What is unusual, and somewhat practical, is cramming the whole thing into something small enough to disappear under your lip. And that may be the actual selling point. Caffeine has already escaped coffee. You can get it in soda, energy drinks, shots, pills, powders, gummies, and gum. An oral pouch was probably inevitable.
Ultra’s Focus pouch doesn’t actually use caffeine. Instead, it has 100mg of Enfinity PX, a branded form of paraxanthine. Paraxanthine is one of the main compounds your body produces when it metabolizes caffeine, and lately it’s been showing up in supplements marketed toward people who want energy or focus without taking caffeine itself. I like the idea of this alternative because caffeine sometimes makes me feel like I’m on drugs.
The pouch also has 30mg Alpha GPC, 10mg L-theanine, 1mg ginseng, 2mg B6, and 2mcg B12. It comes in five flavors: Cool Mint, Wintergreen, Tropical, Watermelon, and Blue Razz.
Ultra describes the formula as supporting sharper focus and cognition, and markets Enfinity PX as producing smoother energy with fewer jitters. As with most supplement language, I wouldn’t read that as a promise that everyone is suddenly going to become extremely productive.
Still, Focus is probably the clearest example of what Ultra is actually doing. While it’s not another nicotine pouch, it is using the pouch as a container for a bunch of other ingredients people already buy in capsules, powders and drinks.
The Sleep pouch is where the whole thing gets a little funny. You put it under your lip before bed.
Each Honey Lemon flavored pouch contains 1mg melatonin, 50mg L-theanine, 30mg magnesium gluconate, plus 10mg chamomile extract, 10mg passionflower extract, and 12mg lemon balm extract. If that ingredient list were printed on a bottle of sleep gummies, nobody would blink. It’s all pretty standard sleep-supplement stuff. It just happens to be in the same general format people associate with Zyn.
That may be why Ultra’s lineup makes more sense when you look at all of it together. Focus uses paraxanthine and nootropics. Sleep uses melatonin and calming ingredients. Energy goes straight for 180mg of caffeine. Same little pouch, but completely different reasons for putting it in your mouth.
Nicotine made oral pouches mainstream, but there’s no rule saying nicotine has to stay inside them. That seems to be the opportunity Ultra spotted.
You can already buy caffeine as coffee, soda, an energy drink, a shot, a powder, a gummy, a pill and probably six other forms I’m forgetting. Sleep supplements and nootropics have gone through the same thing, too. So putting them in a pouch doesn’t actually seem that far-fetched.
The bigger question is if people want to use one this way. Coffee tastes good. Gummies are easy. Pills take about two seconds to swallow. A pouch has to sit under your lip for a while, which is either extremely convenient or kind of annoying depending on how you feel about pouches. But Ultra has already managed to sell millions of cans without nicotine involved. Now it wants to find out if your afternoon caffeine belongs under your lip too.
