This fermented, sweetened tea is thought to have originated in China over 2000 years ago, before spreading to Japan and eventually starting to reach other parts of the world in the early twentieth century. Full of probiotics and antioxidants, the tea has been praised since its early days for its potential healing benefits*.
Probiotics restore the natural balance of bacteria in your gut, helping improve your digestion, reduce inflammation and boost your immune system. And when kombucha is made with green tea, it’s thought to have antioxidant effects, which may help protect against heart disease, cancer and macular degeneration.
Keen to try kombucha?
This goodness-packed drink does come with a bit of a price tag if you buy it premade. This is a good place to start, but many regular drinkers make their own. There are only a few ingredients needed – water, sugar, tea, a starter liquid, and the most important one: the scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). This thick gelatinous skin forms on the top of surface of the liquid to ferment the tea. Once you’ve made one batch, you can reuse the scoby to make another, but you can buy a scoby to start you off.
If you fancy having a go, this BBC Good Food recipe gives you a step-by-step guide. If that all sounds a bit too much hassle, just look around the supermarket – there’s bound a shelf lined with kombucha somewhere.
* As with most things, kombucha should be consumed in moderation.