This is part of a series I’ve been creating for Azumio. Azumio is an app company dedicated to improve health and wellness by tracking sleep and steps, monitoring your glucose levels and heart rate, and providing exercise libraries and routines.
You’ve seen the glass bottles of kombucha take over refrigerated drink shelves at your local grocery store and maybe even offered on tap at a restaurant or made into a cocktail at a bar. But just what is kombucha? Is it good for you? And how do you pronounce it?
Kombucha (pronounced com-boo-cha) is a fermented tea that has roots tracking back to China in around 220 BC. Black or green tea is fermented with a bacteria culture called SCOBY, which stands for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast, and sugar. The culture looks like a large white disk and can be used again and again to make multiple batches of kombucha.
How Kombucha is Made
Kombucha is made by brewing the tea, dissolving the sugar in the hot tea, then adding the SCOBY and kombucha from a previous batch. It sits in a warm, dark place for 7 or more days until it’s a good balance of tart and fizzy. The SCOBY is removed and used for other batches, and the tea can be flavored or bottled immediately.