My Kombucha Beginnings

I was invited up to Madison, my old college town, for Thanksgiving. I decided to go. Besides being one of the best Thanksgivings I've ever experienced, complete with multi-cultural festivities and African drumming, it was also my first introduction to Kombucha. My friend G. wasn't feeling terribly well and said she as going to get herself some kombucha to ward off any impending viral doom. "What's kombucha?" I innocently queried. "It's a fermented tea that I make in my pantry," she told me. She went into the cupboard and pulled from its dark depths a half-gallon mason jar, and as she did so she said to me "I'll warn you now, it looks pretty gross." I was expecting a sort of powdered additive, something like Ovaltine, that she was stirring into her tea. I certainly never expected to see the gelatinous goober that was floating at the top of a jar of tea. Rather than running from it I was fascinated immediately. I asked a lot of questions and stared into the jar, noting the jellyfish-like strings that were dangling from the top of the slimy mass. G. poured herself a glass and offered me some. Trusting in my friend of several years, I decided to give it a go. She wouldn't give me something that would kill me, would she? Certainly not. So I accepted a glass of about 5 ounces of the liquid formerly known as tea. I took an exploratory sip and was surprised by the flavor. "This is a bit stronger than I normally brew it," G. told me. I took that into consideration as I pondered the tart, beer-like flavor. Let me say upfront that I don't drink beer. I've never liked it and I don't like it now. And although this reminded me of the flavor of beer, it wasn't quite the same.

It took me a good hour to finish the glass, as I scanned my body for any signs of malfunction after each sip. I also sat down and, at G.'s urging, looked it up on the Internet. "May cause liver failure." "Woman dies in 1995 of acidosis possibly related to kombucha." Needless to say, my preliminary searches did not corroborate the amazing wonder drink claims that G. said were part of the drink's history. As I later discovered, much of kombucha's goodness is anecdotal. G.'s friend has been drinking it for 7 years and hasn't gotten sick in that period. GT, the found of the commercial GT Kombucha drink, claims that his mother was cured of breast cancer due to the drink. Kombucha is often attributed to hippies and naturalists who rely on the anecdotal evidence and all-natural properties of the drink (I can say this without rancor since I'm a hippie at heart) but if you look at their pictures on the website, GT and his mother certainly look quite the opposite. So does this mean that kombucha's wonder properties are actually really amazing to the point where they transcend class and culture? Or are the commercial 'bucha brewers doing it for the money?

It's hard to say, but I was fascinated to the point where I accepted G.'s gift of a kombucha mother of my own. I called him Scoby (not terribly original since that's generally what they're called), and I carried him all the way from Madison to Chicago in his new half-gallon jar home. Scoby had found a new home and I a new friend.