High on Kombucha!

I love kombucha! There’s just something about it…something magical, like the mushroom that makes it! Well, the mushroom (called Scobi!) is quite weird and can freak you out first time you see it. Especially when Scobi start having ‘babies’, this definately freaked me out! Kombucha making and the names that go with it are rather hilarious. Like you can be if you drink too much kombucha in a day!

Kombucha is a living health drink made by fermenting tea and sugar with the kombucha culture. The resulting taste is something between sparkling apple cider and champagne, depending on what kind of tea you use. It’s not what you’d imagine fermented tea to taste like. The first recorded use of kombucha comes from China in 221 BC during the Tsin Dynasty. From there, in around 1910, it came through Russia to Germany.

It is also known as “The Tea of Immortality” because of its amazing health benefits:

Detoxifying and energizing

Kombucha is very high in Glucuronic acid, the body’s most important detoxifier. When toxins enter the liver this acid binds them to it and flushes them out through the kidneys. Once bound by glucuronic acid toxins cannot escape. A product of the oxidation process of glucose, glucuronic acid is one of the more significant constituents of kombucha. As a detoxifying agent it’s one of the few agents that can cope with pollution from the products of the petroleum industry, including all the plastics, herbicides, pesticides and resins. It kidnaps the phenols in the liver, which are then eliminated easily by the kidneys. Kombucha can be very helpful for allergy sufferers.

Joint Care

Kombucha contains glucosamines, a strong preventive and treatment
for all forms of arthritis. Glucosamines increase synovial hyaluronic acid production. Hyaluronic acid functions physiologically to aid preservation of cartilage structure and prevent arthritic pain. Hyaluronic acid enables connective tissue to bind moisture thousands of times its weight and maintains tissue structure, moisture, lubrication and flexibility and lessens free radical damage, while associated collagen retards and reduces wrinkles.

Aids Digestion and Good Health

Because it’s naturally fermented with a living colony of bacteria and yeast, kombucha is a probiotic beverage. This has a myriad of benefits such as improved digestion, fighting candida (harmful yeast) overgrowth, mental clarity, and mood stability. As such, it’s noted for reducing or eliminating the symptoms of fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety, etc.

Immune Boosting

Kombucha is extraordinarily anti-oxidant rich. But, all which we have mentioned is still not the end. Also fairly significant is the possibility for use of kombucha on skin and hair. Kombucha which has been fermented for around 14 days can be used on a cotton pad as a tonic for your skin. It helps by feeding your skin with healthy ingredients.

Rinsing hair with kombucha helps against hair loss.

Essential trace elements and minerals found in kombucha are: iron,magnesium, sodium, potassium, calcium, copper, zinc, manganese, Cobalt and other minerals. Vitamins wise: Vitamin B1, B2, B3, B6. B12, Vitamin C, D, E and K.

For me personally, the best thing about kombucha is that it tastes great! I sneak it to parties, pour it into a champagne or martini glass and get very happy on it!

The best thing is to make your own kombucha, for the main reason that the shop bought one is often pasteurised, meaning heated by temperatures of 50-70 C, and the mushroom is normally ‘dying’ at temperatures above 30C, therefore questioning the health benefits and healing effects of shop bought drinks. It is still much better than drinking Coke! Or you could try to get it from a producer who doesn’t pasteurise it.

Warning….it can make you really happy!