Thousands of years ago it was called the tea of immortality.
Now fermented tea, also known as kombucha, is making a serious comeback.
In Kelowna, a small brewery called MotherLove is using Okanagan flavours to give the drink a modern, delicious update.
“We start with a green and a black tea and, in the second stage of fermentation, we add the flavours,” said master fermenter Rochelle Minagawa. “We have four flavours that we brew year-round and then a seasonal that changes every month or so to reflect what’s going on in the Okanagan.
“Right now our seasonal has rosehips and orange and hibiscus and it’s called Cosmic Blue.”
Kombucha is said to have a great deal of health benefits.
“Most people drink it because of the probiotic content,” Minagawa said. “It’s also full of digestive enzymes and B vitamins and great for gut health.”
WATCH BELOW (Aired May 30, 2016): The health benefits of kombucha
The art of fermentation, which has been somewhat lost in our modern world, is once again gaining ground.
“We got away from it because we wanted convenience,” Minagawa said. “We pasteurized and heat-blasted things so they could stay on the shelf but we lost all of that live raw food.
“With kombucha, we predigest what’s there with all the fermentation so that your body can absorb the nutrients.”
MotherLove opened in 2015, mainly making the Okanagan farmers’ market rounds.
“We just started with the kits and kombucha as a passion for fermentation that we wanted to share,” said Minagawa. “Since then, the company has grown. We have more retail locations and we’ve started brewing water kefir.”
WATCH BELOW (Aired March 31, 2017): How to prepare healthy kombucha tea at home
The company not only brews and sells bottles and kegs of kombucha and water kefir for personal and commercial use, they also teach people the art form with fermentation workshops on kombucha, kimchi and sauerkraut.
“It’s much more cost effective if you’re consuming a lot of kombucha,” Minagawa said. “And it is very easy.”
The fermenter explains that she starts with a gallon of unflavoured black or green tea.
“You add a cup of sugar when the water’s warm and then that dissolves in there,” Minagawa said. “The sugar is to feed the culture and not a lot is left in the final product.”
WATCH BELOW (Aired Nov. 6, 2018): Gut Health: Kombucha
Once the brew is cooled to room temperature, that’s when the culture comes into play.
“The culture is also called a SCOBY or a mother,” Minagawa said. “The SCOBY stands for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast.”
The SCOBY is passed from brew to brew and will need to be acquired to get the first batch up and running.
After that, one or two cups of starter tea is added — kombucha from the last batch.
WATCH BELOW (Aired Oct. 16, 2017): Food for Thought: kombucha fermented tea
“You put a cloth on top and secure it with a band and then that sits on your counter at room temperature to ferment,” Minagawa said. “Then you can move on and flavour it or drink it as is.”
The company’s products are available at several retailers around the Okanagan as well as the Kelowna and Penticton farmers’ markets.
MotherLove will also be offering workshops in the fall as well as online classes all year round.