Terpenes Take Center Stage As Azuca Expands Its Fast‑Acting Platform

Cannabis infusion specialist Azuca is expanding its TiME INFUSION platform into terpene applications, giving beverage formulators a new way to build fast‑acting, sensory‑driven drinks without cannabinoids. The move comes as hemp beverages face renewed regulatory pressure and brands look for compliant ways to deliver noticeable effects.

Growing Interest In Terpene Functionality

Terpenes have long been part of cannabis formulation work, but interest in their standalone functionality has accelerated as beverage companies search for THC‑free ways to differentiate. Early consumer research on select terpene blends has shown measurable shifts in sensations such as warmth, social ease, and euphoria‑like effects compared with a placebo. That has pushed formulators to explore terpenes as a new tool for building experiential beverages.

Kim Sanchez Rael, Azuca’s co-founder and CEO, said the shift reflects how consumers actually make decisions. 

“Consumers are looking for an experience, for an effect, right? They aren’t necessarily looking for an ingredient on a label,” she said last week in an exclusive interview at IgniteIt’s Cannabis Capital Conference in Chicago. 

“So if you think about a beverage or an edible that has a terpene blend, consumers don’t really care about what the terpene blend is,” she continued. “They care about how it makes them feel. So what Azuca does, Azuca TiME INFUSION, is it’s the delivery system that connects the molecules, the terpenes, to what the consumer actually feels. So it sort of is the bridge between the label and the customer experience, customer effect.”

Azuca’s TiME INFUSION platform has already powered hundreds of millions of fast‑acting cannabinoid servings. The company is now applying the same encapsulation technology to terpenes, creating water‑friendly, predictable ingredients designed specifically for beverage applications.

Solving The Volatility Problem

Terpenes present a different technical challenge than cannabinoids, however. They are volatile, heat-sensitive, and prone to degradation during processing. Rael said that is where the encapsulation process becomes essential.

“I think one of the biggest technical challenges with terpenes specifically is their volatility. They’re very sensitive molecules, and so you need to be very careful about temperature [and] how long they’re exposed to temperature, to preserve their effect,” she said. “TiME INFUSION is a gentle encapsulation process for the terpenes that enables them to be more bioavailable and easier on the taste buds in a beverage form.”

The platform also gives Azuca flexibility in how it works with brands. In regulated cannabis markets, the company licenses formulations and ships non‑infused precursor ingredients that can be infused on site. For terpene‑only products, Azuca can encapsulate and ship finished terpene blends directly, as they are not subject to cannabis regulations. The dual‑pathway model allows brands to operate across jurisdictions with a market-specific formulation strategy.

A Compliant Path Forward For Beverage Brands

The timing aligns with a wave of regulatory uncertainty surrounding hemp‑derived beverages. Terpenes, by contrast, are widely used, GRAS‑certified, and free of the legal ambiguity that has slowed the hemp category.

Sanchez Rael said the convergence of regulatory pressure and new formulation capabilities has created an opening for terpene‑forward innovation. 

“I think that it’s kind of a combination of those forces, the regulatory uncertainty arriving at this moment in time, when formulators in beverages are just discovering the power of terpenes, the functional benefits of terpenes. And also now that terpenes have a formulation with TiME INFUSION that you can put them into a beverage and keep them stable,” she said. “So it’s kind of the perfect alignment between those things. 

“Having a terpene‑only functional beverage enables a brand to have a footprint in the marketplace that is not constrained by the regulatory uncertainty that we see in hemp, nor the jurisdictional constraints in regulated cannabis,” Sanchez Rael added. “So it allows a brand to have a brand extension that transcends those current regulatory nightmares.”