By Shane Harms

Kombucha: elixir of the gods or strange vinegar flavored drink with gelatinous goop floating at the bottom?

Most people that have tried the beverage either love it or hate it. Lovers of the health juice have claimed a slight euphoric feeling it imparts, along with claims of it being a remedy for a litany of conditions. Still, others can’t get past the material floating inside and the slight vinegar flavor.
So what is kombucha?

Kombucha is a modern drink with roots dating back 2,000 years in Russia and China. The ingredients used are tea, sugar, water, and a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY). A SCOBY resembles a mushroom-like, gelatinous structure; it is actually made of cellulose, which the bacteria get from the tea and sugar. The SCOBY is essential to making kombucha, which can be considered a fermented tea that contains a small amount of alcohol and as much caffeine as a cup of green tea.

But there is so much more to it.

The yeasts in the SCOBY feed off the sugars and create alcohol and the bacteria feed off the alcohol to create acetic acid and the important component that distinguishes kombucha from vinegar: gluconic acid.

The acids impart the tart flavor while keeping the alcohol percentage low. In addition, there are antioxidants, organic acids, probiotics, enzymes, and small amounts of vitamin C and B; all of which are said to aid in digestion health, liver function, overall immune system health, and even help fight cancer.

Christopher Joyner, owner and founder of CommuniTea Kombucha, located in Seattle’s Central District, started brewing the elixir 21 years ago in Ohio. His friend was suffering from prostate cancer and looking for ways to detoxify his system. Joyner said removing the amalgam fillings was a start.

“We got our amalgam fillings removed. They have silver but they also contain mercury and other heavy metals. The dentist’s nutritionist suggested that in order to continue the process of helping the body unload heavy metals, kombucha could be useful because it helps your liver detoxify your system. They say that the urine of new kombucha drinkers has more heavy metals in it,” said Joyner. Joyner received his original SCOBY from the nutritionist.

While living in Ohio, Joyner made up to fifteen gallons a week in his kitchen for members of his community and for a farmers market and small co-op in Columbus. Eight years ago he moved to Seattle and started making kombucha again, in his apartment. He got his first commercial kitchen in Ballard, in 2008, becoming Washington’s first WSDA-licensed kombucha facility. He began selling just before Christmas of that year, at the Ballard Farmers Market.

Since then CommuniTea Kombucha has moved to a small space in the Central District, where they brew as many as 39, 25-liter containers a week.

Joyner and Lead Brewer, Sommer-Rae Simonson (background), at the brewery.

Restaurants are buying CommuniTea Kombucha and offering it on tap and in the bottle. Joyner also distributes to some Whole Food locations and other stores like Central Co-op, Nash’s Farm Store and Husky Deli (West Seattle).

Joyner attributes his success to the quality of the ingredients and the authentic, traditional methods used. At the very start, Joyner uses the best tea he can find: biodynamic organic green tea from the Makaibari Tea Estate near Darjeeling, India.

“We emphasize the tea. Kombucha is fermented tea after all. So we have a very high quality tea. It’s biodynamically grown. One thing that characterizes biodynamic agriculture is that it considers the energy, which brings life to things and which we usually take for granted. Although we can’t explain it scientifically, it works in very specific ways. Our kombucha improved perceptibly when we switched teas.”

Biodynamic agriculture is devoted to sustainable farming and use holistic practices that improve water quality, soil health and biodiversity. These refined practices affect the flavor and quality of crops that are grown.
In addition to the tea, the only other ingredients are organic evaporated cane juice (sugar), and CustomPure filtered water, along with his SCOBY.

“ We think that the kombucha by itself should be delicious, and that it’s not a good idea to add flavoring to the tea. Most kombucha now is flavored. We call them "kombucha-style beverages." They’re higher in sugar and have had the alcohol removed so they can be sold to more people. Flavoring is added because basically it doesn’t taste that great.”

Joyner brews traditional kombucha, meaning it contains alcohol -- 2.5 percent alcohol, to be exact. When new regulation was implemented in 2010, Joyner had to decide to either stop making traditional kombucha or become a “brewery.”

“We considered lots of possibilities, but we decided to continue making kombucha in the traditional way, and that’s been an important decision for us.”

Maintaining the most authentic version of kombucha is important to Joyner because he believes it has an ability to affect the body in ways science can’t explain.

“The tea makes a difference in the way you feel. Think of the way that Chinese medicine works with Qi – energy in the body – although how it works is outside our cultural understanding; we do know that it works. The kombucha may affect us in a similar way.”

Joyner described the mental clarity, slight euphoria and energy one often feels after drinking kombucha. He attributes them to not only the probiotics influencing digestive health and the improvement in liver function, but to a cumulative influence on the body from the methods of production, quality ingredients and an unexplainable affect on Qi or energy.

“I think there is an energetic influence on our system that is perceptible and lifts the spirits. It’s not the caffeine or the alcohol. You could drink a cup of tea or have a little beer and it wouldn’t make you feel this way.”

At the CommuniTea brewery, Sommer-Rae Simonson, lead brewer and culture crafter, uses a pulley system to dunk a tea bag the size of a 40-gallon pillowcase into a stainless steel steam kettle. Once the tea is brewed, organic sugar is added. To mix in the sugar Joyner and Simonson use a unique stirring technique modeled on a procedure from biodynamic agriculture. He creates a vortex in the water then doubles-back and creates a vortex moving in the opposite direction.

Next, the tea is poured into smaller vessels and the SCOBY is returned to the top for the primary fermentation phase. The kombucha is placed in a room that is kept at 80 degrees Fahrenheit. In this phase the yeast goes to work eating the sugar to make alcohol and the bacteria uses the alcohol to make acetic acid and gluconic acid. After seven days the batch is ready to be bottled. The bottling phase is when the carbonation increases as the sugars are further metabolized and the crisp, tart flavor matures.

Joyner and Simonson stirring the sugar into the tea.

“We don’t add anything. We don’t add carbonation; this is a naturally effervescent drink. We don’t pasteurize it to control the alcohol, because pasteurizing kills the live organisms which are a big part of what’s important about kombucha.”

Like the stirring technique, Joyner uses other methods to maintain more traditional, human interaction in the brewing process.

“We make it in small batches. We think that the human involvement in the making of it is really important, so we make it in sizes that one person can handle. If you make it in a 500-gallon stainless steal wine fermenter you don’t get the same result."

During the bottling phase, Joyner uses basic plumbing techniques in an inventive way to make the bottling system fluid and efficient. The kombucha is poured into a drum that is then hoisted with a winch above the bottling station. Gravity is all the force needed to allow the kombucha to flow into a bottling trough where three siphon tubes easily fill bottles. The trough contains a float valve that maintains a consistent level. Kombucha fills the bottles to a level controlled by setting the height of a shelf. In this way the bottling system can handle any bottle size. The whole system streamlines bottling without the use of pumps and industrial vats.

The space he currently works in is important to Joyner because it allows him to make his kombucha as close to traditional methods as possible. However, the building CommuniTea operates in has been sold and they are currently looking for a new location; one with high ceilings for the pulley and winch systems and enough room for a walk-in refrigerator.

“We are not sticking to tradition for the sake of tradition; we think there is real wisdom embodied in those methods and we want to express it in a contemporary way.”