Kosher Critic: Kombucha tea- hard to say... and swallow

Some days I love my job more than others. The days I don’t love usually come in sporadic bursts when something akin to journalistic integrity pricks at my consciousness and forces me to address a food item that I desperately do not want to try. In this case a probiotic red tea called Kombucha.

Billed as a “health elixir,” Kombucha is beginning to garner more attention from health conscious consumers as grocery stores begin to stock this beverage in greater quantities. To best convey what Kombucha is I will quote directly from my bottle of GT’s Original flavor Organic Raw Kombucha.

“Kombucha (pronounced kom-BOO-cha) is a hand-made Chinese tea that is delicately cultured for 30 days.” In layman’s terms, it is a fermented tea that is given a month to develop various microorganisms thought to be beneficial to a person’s overall health. GT’s Kombucha states on the bottle that though the FDA has yet to evaluate the legitimacy of its health benefits it is known to support “Digestion, Metabolism, Immune System, Appetite Control, Liver Function, Body Alkalinity (my personal favorite), Anti-Aging, Cell Integrity and Healthy Skin and Hair.” Now far be it from me to dispute the wisdom of drinking a 1000-year-old Chinese recipe for petri dish tea for the health benefits, because I am neither a scientist nor a nutritionist.  I am, however, a food critic and would be remiss if I didn’t address the taste of this increasingly popular beverage. So I went to my local Whole Foods and purchased two bottles of GT’s one in original flavor and the other in Mystic Mango.
Upon opening the first bottle of Original Kombucha I was treated with the unmistakable odor of apple cider vinegar. I found the mouthful of vinegar smelling tea far from tasty. It tastes somewhat like spoiled apple juice.

The mango flavored Kombucha has a much more pleasant smell which I think makes it immediately better because of how closely odor and flavor work with each other. It smells faintly of mango with a slightly sour note. The flavor is light and fruity and tastes like a sour mango soda but with a distinct aftertaste of vinegar. If one where truly dedicated to the Kombucha cause and drank the suggested 16-ounce bottle per day this would probably be the preferred flavor over the original.

A few notes on Kombucha. There are literally dozens of manufactures but I believe the only one to carry a hechsher is GT’s which bears a certification from Rabbi Eli Frankel and the Los Angeles-based Kosher Certification Service. This hashgacha appears as a large C with a small K inside of it.

Kombucha is also very mildly alcoholic due to its live cultures. It is important not to give it to children, as there has been instances of them becoming inebriated. Also, keep in mind this is a live culture, which means the bottle is under internal pressure from gas that is being released by the bacteria in the drink so please no matter how cloudy your bottle of Kombucha looks do not under any circumstances shake it.

Lastly if you are already an avid Kombucha drinker please keep in mind that Kombucha is highly acidic and is believed (by actual scientists) to contain an abundance of glucuronic acid. This can result in increased stomach acid and liver and kidney trouble. If you begin to get heart burn more regularly or have pain in your liver of kidneys please discontinue drinking Kombucha. If you haven’t started drinking Kombucha and are still curious, please reread this article until you are thoroughly convinced that drinking it is a bad idea.

Zechariah Mehler is a widely published food writer and expert in social marketing. Follow him on Twitter @thekoshercritic