A couple of weeks ago I was shopping at the natural foods market in Berkeley and was surprised to see an entire refrigerated section dedicated to kombucha tea. It seems that after a long history of popularity among the alternative health crowd, kombucha tea is going mainstream (although I don’t think it will outsell Pepsi anytime soon).

Often referred to as a mushroom, kombucha is actually a living culture composed of yeasts, bacteria and cellulose living in a symbiotic relationship. During the fermentation process the kombucha culture is introduced to a medium (black tea sweetened with white sugar), and over time the yeasts break down the sugar and the bacteria digests yeast byproducts, resulting in kombucha tea. [click to continue…]

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