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Krazy for Kombucha

This fermented tea leaves me - and a growing army of converted sippers - wanting more, and brewers large and small are taking note.

By Meredith Goad mgoad@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

I don’t remember my first taste of kombucha, but there was something in its fizzy tartness that grabbed my tastebuds and wouldn’t let go.

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Chris Hallweaver of Yarmouth is a partner in the Maine Kombucha Co., a new business that is marketing its lines of teas as "The Booch."

John Ewing / Staff Photographer

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Because store-bought brands can be expensive, many kombucha lovers are brewing their own at home. The fermentation process takes a week to 10 days.

Jill Brady / Staff Photographer

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KNOW YOUR KOMBUCHA

How do you pronounce it?

“Kom-boo-cha.” It’s also known as mushroom tea or vinegar tea.

What are the benefits of drinking kombucha?

Proponents say it improves digestion and liver function, and stimulates the immune system, but there is no track record of human studies to prove any of this. A lot of people who drink it say it gives them a general sense of well being.

Can kombucha hurt you?

There have been some reports of side effects such as upset stomach and allergic reactions. Kombucha is so acidic it’s tough for anything to grow in it, but home brews can become contaminated in unsanitary conditions. Pregnant and breastfeeding women, people with suppressed immune systems or other medical conditions should probably check with their doctor before trying it. Kombucha should not be brewed in ceramic, lead crystal or painted containers, because the acidity of the tea leaches out contaminants.

It’s fermented. Does that mean it’s an alcoholic beverage?

Kombucha contains only trace amounts of alcohol.

Is there a receptor in the brain for this addictive fermented tea? Is there some sort of neural pathway that keeps kombucha drinkers coming back for more, like lab rats snorting sugar water until they bloat up like Mickey Rourke, the comeback version?

At this very moment, I am sipping some berry hibiscus-flavored kombucha and there is a long, slimy-looking thing floating at the bottom of my cup like a worm in a bottle of tequila. And yet, instead of recoiling in horror, I’m pounding it down like a cowboy slinging back shots at the local saloon.

Gimme another, barkeep.

For those who don’t know kombucha, it’s an effervescent, fermented tea with lots of purported health benefits that’s about to explode on the national beverage scene like chai did a few years back.

Until now, only health nuts and folks like me with hippie-esque pasts were fans. We stocked up on GT Kombucha when it was on sale and tried to ignore the label, which talks about how they chant to their tea while it’s fermenting. (They’re from California.)

They chant because, you see, kombucha is a living thing. Full of probiotics, just like yogurt. It has B vitamins, amino acids and good-for-you enzymes.

To brew it, you have to have a mother. A mother is this big round thing that looks like a slab of tofu. It’s actually a living mat of microorganisms, a “symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast” – or scoby, for short. Throw it in some sweet tea (the live culture feeds on the sugar), leave it for a week to 10 days, and voila, you have kombucha.

Like other addictions, kombucha can be an expensive habit, unless you make your own. I’ve never tried home-brewing kombucha because, frankly, I was afraid I’d do something wrong and kill myself. You’ll pay at least $3.49 per 16-ounce bottle in stores, and until recently, there hasn’t been a lot of competition on the market.

CATCHING ON WITH THE MASSES

But as the kombucha craze sweeps college campuses (it’s a great hangover cure, or so I’m told), the drink is becoming more mainstream, and there are more brands available. Whole Foods Market in Portland is now offering Katalyst Kombucha, a brand out of Greenfield, Mass., on tap.

Honest Tea just introduced their own version, “Honest Kombucha,” notes Chris Hallweaver of Yarmouth, a kombucha fan I met on Twitter who is working on a local kombucha start-up.

“In addition, Celestial Seasonings just purchased a kombucha brewer from Boulder, and they’re going to go national,” Hallweaver said. “So I think we’re going to see the big players get into the market, and I think that’s going to leave a lot of room for microbrewers.”

Hallweaver fell in love with kombucha when his 24-year-old daughter, Taryn, started brewing it herself because she couldn’t afford the $4-a-bottle price tag.

Once he started drinking it, he couldn’t stop. It replaced his afternoon coffee as a pick-me-up. “Your body starts to crave it, I think,” he said.

TEA ON TAP

Hallweaver and his daughter teamed up with another kombucha brewer from Portland, Reid Emmerich, to form the Maine Kombucha Co. They call their drink “The Booch,” and they are working on the licensing they need to brew it commercially. Starting April 1, they plan to offer their tea on tap at the Portland Public Market and in cafes around the city.

Who better than Hallweaver to give me a kombucha-making lesson?

I visited his home one snowy day a few weeks ago, and he showed me some of the flavors the Maine Kombucha Co. has been developing – ginger, lemon honey hibiscus, cranberry maple and sour citrus. Hallweaver always preferred it raw, but “when we started to investigate selling it, a lot of people don’t like it raw. It’s a very vinegary, stronger flavor.”

Hallweaver showed me the glass gallon jug filled with kombucha tea that he was sending home with me to kick-start my own brewing. A paper towel was stretched across the top so the tea could breathe without becoming the final resting place of curious bugs.

Floating near the top was the scoby. Floating near the bottom were little pieces of… something. On bottles of Hallweaver’s tea, there’s a note that helpfully explains that these little bits of intestinal goodness are supposed to be there. Yes, you’re supposed to swallow them.

Hallweaver took the paper towel off the top of the jug and let me see that the tea was bubbling a little on top, like primordial ooze.

Well, pardon the pun, but this kind of thing isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. If I had seen this before trying my first sip of kombucha, I’m not sure this magical elixir would ever have passed my lips.

“If everybody loved it, there wouldn’t be as much of an appeal to it,” Hallweaver said. “The fact that some people think it’s gross is appealing to other people.”

Hallweaver said this batch had been started on Friday. It was now Tuesday, and he advised that I harvest the tea no later than Saturday or Sunday.

“When you do it earlier, it will be a little yeastier,” he explained, “and there will be more enzymes if you let it brew longer. There are different health attributes depending on how long you wait. Ideally, you want to wait until all the sugar has been eaten up, because this is really a non-sweet drink.”

As the mother scoby eats the sugar, it produces a “daughter.” Eventually, the culture grows so large, you have to divide it and start another jug brewing, toss it or give it away to a friend as crazy as you.

I took my jug of fermenting tea home and looked for a place to keep it. Like a mushroom, a kombucha scoby is happiest someplace dark and warm.

It grows well just under 80 degrees, but my thermostat usually stays around 68 to 69 degrees. Hallweaver, who uses a thermometer and heating mat for his own brew, suggested the top of the refrigerator.

I was looking around when I heard the furnace kick on. That gave me an idea. I set it on the floor next to the heating vent in my dining room.

Then I walked away.

HARVEST TIME

On Sunday, I went through the harvesting steps as Hallweaver had explained them. I took out about 10 percent of the kombucha tea from the jug and put it into a bowl for the scoby to rest in until I could prepare more sweet tea for my next batch.

Here was the moment of truth. I gingerly put my hand into the jar to pull out the scoby – I was afraid I’d break it with a spoon or spatula – and instead of the sliminess I expected, its surface felt slick and hard, like an extra-extra firm block of tofu. I plopped it into the bowl of kombucha.

Then I brewed more green tea and added some organic sugar according to the recipe I’d been given.

“You want a simple sugar,” Hallweaver said. “It doesn’t work with honey or maple syrup, much as we would like it to.”

The freshly-brewed tea must cool completely before putting the scoby back in, or the heat will kill it.

While the new tea was cooling, I poured some of the ready-to-drink kombucha from the jug into bottles that Hallweaver had given me, and I put what was left in some mason jars. It all went into the refrigerator to cool down so it would be drinkable.

Once the new batch of sweet tea had cooled, I refilled the gallon jug and gently lowered the scoby back in. A fresh paper towel was secured on top, and the jug was ready to go back into its hiding place by the furnace vent.

There would be no chanting. (I briefly considered putting on some Frank Sinatra, but thought better of it.)

When it came time to taste the harvested kombucha, I was pleasantly surprised. It smelled vinegary, but the taste was a really nice balance of sweet and tangy. And there was good fizz. How would my own batch turn out?

My first brew was put in the jug on a Sunday. Ten days came and went. I got busy and figured it couldn’t hurt to wait an extra day.

Then another day went by, and I began to feel neglectful. Every time I walked through the dining room, I could feel that mother scoby looking at me. Just what I need, more parental guilt.

Finally, on Thursday, I bottled my very own first batch. It was a little sweeter than I expected, and didn’t have the fizziness I was used to. But it was good.

I consulted Hallweaver about the lack of fizz, and he said I should be sure to fill the bottles all the way to the top, put the lids on tight and leave them for a couple of days to get secondary fermentation going.

Cut off the oxygen to the microorganisms, he said, “and then the live culture will still go a little bit and whatever it can, it will convert to (carbon dioxide). That’s why you get the fizziness when you open it. Now, there’s no health benefit in the fizziness, so this is purely to make it more palatable.”

This is also the time to add flavor – some juice, or a few slices of ginger, maybe – but I decided I wanted to start off with nothing but raw kombucha until I got the hang of it.

All during this process, I kept my skeptical colleagues informed on the progress of my kombucha, and promised I would bring some in for sampling.

They didn’t seem too excited. My friend Sally brings in birthday cakes so beautiful they will make you weep; I bring in science experiments.

Those who were brave enough to try my tea said they liked it. Maybe they were just being polite. Most thought it tasted something like apple cider vinegar. I couldn’t help but think they would be more enthusiastic if I’d made it fizzier.

I felt like a mom accompanying her kid to his first day of school. “Please like my child! Please!”

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks. I still love the stuff, and there is already another gallon jug percolating by my heating vent. And I am thinking of investing in a thermometer and heating mat.

Gimme another, barkeep.

Staff Writer Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at mgoad@pressherald.com