This is kombucha.
And so is this. And so is this.
Two decades ago, this fizzy fermented mushroom tea was a niche
beverage, largely confined to local farmer's markets and organic
grocery stores. Fast forward to today , and sales are exploding.
The U.S. market for Kombucha went from one hundred and $52 million in
2015 to $492 million dollars in 2019.
In fact, some experts predict the category will grow into a $4.6
billion dollar global industry by 2024.
Here's how kombucha went from a farmer's market favorite to a global
phenomenon. This is Suddenly Obsessed.
Kombucha is made with a base of black, green or oolong tea and added
sugar, but this is what gives kombucha it's well earned nickname of
"mushroom tea." This is a SCOBY.
SCOBY stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.
But it's not actually a mushroom.
A SCOBY is a disc of floating fungus about the size of a pancake that
sits in the tea for anywhere between seven days to nearly a month.
As the drink for ferments, the SCOBY feeds on the sugar that was
added to the tea base as it eats the sugar.
The SCOBY releases bacteria along with naturally occurring alcohol,
carbon dioxide and various types of acids.
Kombucha can be sold as a non-alcoholic product as long as the
resulting brews stays under the federal government's alcohol content
threshold of half a percent.
Otherwise, it's subject to regulation.
After kombucha is done fermenting for anywhere between one to three
weeks. The SCOBY is removed and used in the next batch.
Some brewers use the same SCOBY for decades and refer to it as a
"Mother SCOBY."
The resulting bubbly brew contains a wealth of bacteria and yeast,
which experts say give the drink its probiotic properties.
Those probiotics are linked to a lot of health benefits immune
health, mood, digestive health.
So why kombucha has become such a popular drink is because they're
finding that when things are fermented, it creates more probiotics in
that drink. Now it seems like Kombucha is having a moment.
It's on store shelves and in coffee shops.
You can even find it on tap in workplace breakrooms.
Celebrities like Kourtney Kardashian, Lady Gaga and Lindsay Lohan
have all been spotted with a bottle of the brew.
But kombucha's growth isn't due to A-list endorsements with a tea's,
supposedly amazing taste.
Instead, it can be pinpointed to something much more wholesome--
growing consumer preferences for healthier alternatives.
Shoppers are turning their backs on sugary soda drinks and are
flocking towards tea, coffee and water alternatives like seltzer.
Key players like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have invested millions to
diversify their portfolios to include healthier options.
In an effort to offset sodas, flattening sales and kombucha producers
are taking advantage of this movement by marketing themselves as a
healthier alternative.
That's led to some questionable claims, like allegations it can
protect against cancer, fight heart disease, improve digestion and
boost your metabolism.
But kombucha can be a hard sell.
Some brands believe strands of the SCOBY to float around the bottom
of the glass and the fermentation process gives kombucha its unique
flavor profile that is hard to pin down.
It's a little bit sweet and a little bit vinegary.
It doesn't taste sweet at all, even though there's a little bit of
sugar in it. Sometimes your initial reaction is: Oh God, I think this
has gone bad. Kombucha's origins date back to more than 2000 years
ago in East Asia, where a physician reportedly brought the tea's
fungus to Japan as a cure for all sorts of digestive issues.
Centuries of trade brought it to Russia.
And by the 20th century found its way to Eastern Europe.
It was in Germany where the tea adopt the name we now know
"kombucha." Kombucha's commercial origins in the U.S.,
however, can be pinpointed to California when a 15 year old boy began
bottling homemade kombucha in his kitchen in 1995.
That boy was G.T.
Dave. And today, his company, GT's Living Foods, is the number one
bottler and seller of kombucha in the U.S.
based on market share.
G.T. Dave, what a kooky guy.
But I guess, you know, as you got to be kooky to brew kombucha and
make it your life. You know, I think it's awesome.
He's paved the way. He was super smart to start the category that far
in advance. Kombucha was one of the many bizarre foods that filled
G.T.'s childhood. His parents were gifted a mother SCOBY from the
Himalayas, and began fermenting their own tea in their Bel Air home.
And I noticed how it went from one batch to two batches to five
batches to seven batches a week, which was an indication of their
consumption of kombucha, because naturally, the more you make, the
more you need to cultivate and ferment and grow.
He didn't think much about the drink supposed health benefits until
his mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1994.
The doctors originally handed her a bleak prognosis, but after
further testing, they found she'd made a miraculous recovery.
G.T. was convinced the strange fizzy fermented tea she had been
drinking had something to do with it.
I became curious and certainly motivated to understand what this
bizarre tea was because in my mind it didn't cure my mom, and I've
never said it cured her, but it certainly helped her.
In fact, he felt his mom's story was so powerful, he included it on
its packaging. Commercially available kombucha was pretty much
nonexistent in the U.S.
before 1999.
That was the year Whole Foods began stocking G.T.'s
kombucha. In fact, sales of soft drinks were astronomical at the
time. In 1994, the average American consumed an estimated 50 gallons
worth of soft drinks in one year.
That figure would climb to an average of 54 gallons by 1998.
And even today, soft drinks are still by far the most popular drink
in America. Making up a significant portion of the estimated 80
billion dollar beverage industry in the U.S.
But, Kombucha has posted a near 35 percent increase in dollar sales
on average over the past four years.
Consumers are looking more and more for healthy beverages and foods
that make them feel good.
And there are very few options out there that both make you feel good
and offer nutritional or functional benefits and are natural or made
naturally and kombucha is one of those things that hits all those
things that consumers are seeking for.
Kombucha was once mostly popular among hardcore health enthusiasts.
But its appeal is spreading to a broader audience.
Some of the largest beverage companies in the world, including
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, are investing in kombucha to gain footing in
the market. In 2016 PepsiCo acquired Kevita, which is the second
largest kombucha brand in the U.S.
for a reported $200 million.
Following Kevita and share of the U.S.
kombucha market is Healthy-Ade, which secured an estimated 20 million
dollar investment from Coca-Cola in 2019.
But brands like PepsiCo's Kevita have come under scrutiny for
manipulating the brewing process by gently pasteuriz ing the beverage
after fermentation, gently pasteurized beverages are heated for a
short period of time, killing bacteria and giving the product a
longer shelf life. So unfortunately, a lot of these companies,
they're wired to be manufacturers and they're wired to assemble their
products more than cultivate them.
And Kombucha really can only be cultivated.
It can't be assembled.
So when somebody tries to force kombucha in more of a manufacturing
environment, the end result is unfortunately, a lot of times you end
up with a compromise result.
But despite how it's made, shoppers have struggled to separate
kombucha's clinically proven health benefits from commonly circulated
folklore. The short answer-- there's not enough scientific evidence
to prove those claims.
There is research on probiotics and the microbiome and how those are
beneficial for your health.
But you can't necessarily say that you've seen a study that shows
that kombucha is going to boost your overall health.
In 2010, G.T.
faced a class action lawsuit and agreed to remove his mother's cancer
journey from his bottles along with claims of, quote, weight control,
anti-aging and healthy skin.
Consumers have also voiced concerned about kombucha's alcohol
content. In 2010, test results at a Whole Foods in Maine on alcohol
levels well above the half a percent threshold.
Some were found to be nearly 2.5
percent higher than what they should have been.
This resulted in the grocer pulling all unpasteurized versions of
kombucha offered shelves until companies could prove that their
products met regulatory standards.
Brewers like G.T.'s
tweaked their recipes to address the alcohol issue and were allowed
back on to store shelves where they've remained ever since.
And if you picked up a kombucha today, the odds are you'd find a
warning label that indicates there could be trace amounts of alcohol
in the tea. Although that amount can't be predicted perfectly every
time. But industry experts seem to believe those concerns are a blip
in kombucha's mysterious two thousand year old past.
And while there's still no concrete evidence to suggest Kombucha is
the fountain of youth, some promise it to be.
It doesn't look like it'll be disappearing from shelves anytime soon.