I first heard about kombucha sometime in 2004… I can’t remember exactly when. However, I was caught up in all of the new things about food that I was learning and switching over to real milk was taking the place of other beverage investigations. So I am finally drinking kombucha. A wonderful health promoting beverage.
So first off, what is kombucha? Kombucha is tea that has been fermented. It’s always prepared with sugar and tea. Just like any fermentation, the bacteria and yeast feed on the sugar and the byproduct is carbon dioxide and some other stuff which I do not remember at the moment. You should look it up. (who says that? really?) Kombucha contains several B-vitamins, probiotics, enzymes, and antioxidants.
It is much cheaper to make your own kombucha as all you need is tea, sugar, and a kombucha mushroom. The kombucha mushroom is also called a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). I am not going to go into details right now on how to make it but I will in a future post. I am currently trying to determine what are the best combinations for making kombucha (black, green, or white tea… honey, rapadura, maple syrup). For now, I just want to highlight kombucha itself.
If you are looking to buy some kombucha, instead of making it, make sure you get raw, organic kombucha. Buying organic ensures that the tea is free from pesticides and other toxic residues. Buying raw ensures that you are getting a living product with all of the enzymes and healthy bacteria still alive and well. A brand that I recommend is GT’S Kombucha and we just did a review for them on WhatToDoAbout.com. The nice thing about GT’S is they have so many different flavors in their synergy line that you can try. Besides that, they produce a high quality product.
Well, I hope that wet your appetite for some kombucha… or at least made you want to learn more about it. Stay tuned I’ll be writing more about it in the future.
Tim is a health researcher and educator based out of Nashville, TN. Connect with him on Instagram @eattodaytolivetomorrow.
