Question: Kombucha.
Al_Howard
Posts: 9,717 Member
What is it? And, why, or why not should I use it?
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Replies
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Kombucha is fermented juice (usually) that contains a lot of probiotics. Some of them taste good. Some of them taste like *kitten*. You have to find the one you like.
Kombucha is really good for gut health, and it can help with regularity. That said, you don't want to drink it more than, say, twice a week - although, some will say you should drink it daily. From experience, I am telling you - at least at first - to limit your intake until your gut biome is used to it.
I don't drink it often, maybe a couple of bottles per month, maybe just one. But, it really is a pretty good, somewhat tasty, way of keeping your gut biome healthy.1 -
Kombucha is actually a fermented tea that may have many other things like ginger etc added to it.
It is a complex fermentation.
Kombucha tea is obtained from a symbiotic culture (called SCOBY) of acetic acid bacteria (AAB; Komagataeibacter, Gluconobacter, and Acetobacter species) (Roos & Vuyst, 2018), lactic acid bacteria (LAB; Lactobacillus, Lactococcus) (Marsh, Hill, Ross, & Cotter, 2014), and yeasts (Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Saccharomycodes ludwigii, Kloeckera apiculata, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Zygosaccharomyces bailii, Torulaspora delbrueckii, Brettanomyces bruxellensis) (Coton et al., 2017) in a sweet medium, generally black tea.
Shorter answer is that the "mother" which floats on top of the fermented Kombucha contains acetic acid (vinegar) loving bacteria and some yeasts. One makes it by adding some of the mother from previous Kombucha to a solution of tea and a bit of sugar and wait for it to ferment.
It is normally not especially alcoholic and contains well less than 0.5% (1/2 a percent) of alcohol at most.
Some brands do contain a bit more but not common.
Lots of flavors have been added to commercial products.
A second fermentation can also be done which makes it fizzy!
Like many ferment products it is good for our biome. So is homemade sauerkraut too.2 -
Kombucha tea is obtained from a symbiotic culture (called SCOBY) of acetic acid bacteria (AAB; Komagataeibacter, Gluconobacter, and Acetobacter species) (Roos & Vuyst, 2018), lactic acid bacteria (LAB; Lactobacillus, Lactococcus) (Marsh, Hill, Ross, & Cotter, 2014), and yeasts (Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Saccharomycodes ludwigii, Kloeckera apiculata, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Zygosaccharomyces bailii, Torulaspora delbrueckii, Brettanomyces bruxellensis) (Coton et al., 2017) in a sweet medium, generally black tea.
Bob - please tell me you copied and pasted that paragraph rather than typing it.2
