Another article about the Kombucha industry and the alcohol crisis of 2010. Ed Rothbauer, company President and co-founder, was interviewed at length and is quoted throughout the article. Go check it out at http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2094921_2094923_2108731-1,00.html
Thank you Chris Matthews for the great article. With the help of our loyal customers and increased consumer awareness we hope to make 2012 our best year yet.
Is Celebrity Favorite Kombucha Really a Health and Anti-Aging Cure?
Feb 28, 2012 4:45 AM EST
It costs just a few bucks per bottle in your local supermarket and is claimed to reverse the aging process and cure everything from baldness to cancer. For pennies, it can even be brewed at home, if you don’t mind a little slime.
So who wouldn’t join Madonna, Halle Berry, Lindsay Lohan, and Gwyneth Paltrow on the kombucha bandwagon, especially now that new scientific studies appear to support all those claims? A sparkling golden fermented beverage that packs a massive antioxidant punch and looks and tastes like a cross between Champagne and vinegar, kombucha is now a $150-million-a-year industry that’s growing exponentially, despite worries about possible side effects and health risks.
Comprising acetic acid, malic acid, butyric acid, oxalic acid, lactic acid, and a teensy bit of alcohol, kombucha has been a standard refresher, alleged hangover cure, and all-around home remedy in Asia and Eastern Europe for millennia. Its origins and etymology are veiled in mystery: cha is Chinese for “tea,” but debates rage over those first two syllables. Some say kombucha was brought to Russia by Manchurian traders. Others trace it to southern China, Korea, and Japan. Some go so far as to call it ancient.
Which culture created it? When something’s being touted as the next best thing to manna, everyone wants to say, “We had it first.”
“In many cases—but not all—foods that have long, rich cultural and medicinal traditions often turn out to have proven scientific benefits,” says registered dietitian Sharon Palmer, author of The Plant-Powered Diet. Still, she adds that “although celebrities bring attention to many issues of diet and nutrition, that doesn’t mean they are always correct or give the best advice.”
Kombucha was withdrawn from Whole Foods and other stores in the summer of 2010 due to concerns over its alcohol content. By that fall, it was back on the shelves.
Because the rubbery white wodge that fuels its fermentation resembles a mushroom cap, kombucha is often mistakenly called “mushroom tea.” That mat is actually a culture: in technical terms, a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. Fed a steady stream of super-sweet black, green, or white tea—one cup of sugar per gallon—it will replicate indefinitely, producing ever more wodges, each of which can be reused indefinitely.
Mid-20th-century Russian and German studies credited kombucha with reducing or curing dysentery, dyspepsia, high blood pressure, gastritis, colitis, gout, kidney stones, and even cancer. Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn credited kombucha with curative properties in his novel The Cancer Ward. After his own bout with cancer, Ronald Reagan became a fan. Celebs have followed suit ever since: Reese Witherspoon, Anna Paquin, and Orlando Bloom have been snapped clutching bottles of “booch.” Now a new wave of studies might boost sales even higher.
One cell-based study, destined for the June 2012 issue of the journal Swiss Society of Food Science and Technology’s, asserts that kombucha “has prophylactic and therapeutic properties” including antimicrobial, antibacterial, and antifungal effects. Its authors speculate that kombucha “may be very healthful” in combating yeast infections, thrush, and other forms of candidiasis.
Palmer warns that the scientific evidence on kombucha’s benefits is just in the preliminary stages. “Cell and animal studies indicate that it may have some antioxidant properties, but there’s no proof to back many of the popular claims,” she says.
A 2011 study affiliated with India’s Jadavpur University and published inPathophysiology found that kombucha consumption effectively protects liver cells. Its authors conclude that kombucha “was found to modulate the oxidative stress-induced apoptosis in murine hepatocytes probably due to its antioxidant activity and functioning via mitochondria dependent pathways and could be beneficial against liver diseases, where oxidative stress is known to play a crucial role.”
Maybe Lindsay Lohan wouldn’t put it quite that way, but the message is clearly spreading.
“I sell every bottle of kombucha that I make, and I can hardly keep up with demand,” says Alex Hozven, co-owner of the Cultured Pickle Shop in Berkeley, Calif.
Hozven first began brewing kombucha 13 years ago, when she was nursing her son. Having given up caffeine, she had heard that kombucha produced a light buzz.
“I was interested in fermented foods anyway,” she recalls. “Here was one more to experiment with.”
Using local produce, she devised a line of seasonal luxury kombuchas such as blood orange-caraway, parsley-grapefruit, and lemon-turmeric-sunflower-greens, as well as pumpkin, celery, carrot, fennel, jalapeño pepper, turnip, and beet. They have proved wildly popular.
“My kombucha’s a lot more expensive than anything else out there,” Hozven says, “but I still sell every drop.”
The latest studies join a growing archive showing similarly positive results. A cell-based 2010 study published in the Food & Function journal cited kombucha’s capacity for combating free radicals, a type of molecule that furthers the aging process. And a cell-based 2007 study published in Food Chemistry noted the “structural modification of components in tea due to enzymes liberated by bacteria and yeast during kombucha fermentation which results in better scavenging performance on nitrogen and superoxide radicals.”
“I think that these studies are intriguing and that kombucha may very well turn out to possess some health-promoting activities,” Palmer says. “But we don’t know enough about it at this point. Even if a cell study shows antioxidant potential, that doesn’t mean that these benefits translate over to humans.
“It’s important to note the safety concerns of kombucha,” she adds. “There have been side effects reported—like stomach upsets, infections, and even deaths.”
The most frequently cited kombucha-related death occurred in April 1995, when the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Iowa Department of Public Health joined forces to investigate why a middle-aged Iowa woman with no history of heart problems had died of cardiac arrest. Her bloodstream contained perilously high levels of lactic acid; the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) linked the finding with her having drunk home-brewed kombucha for two months.
While in small amounts kombucha “may not cause adverse effects in healthy persons … the potential health risks are unknown for those with preexisting health problems or those who drink excessive quantities,” warned the MMWR. Thus, “health-care professionals should consider consumption of kombucha tea in the differential diagnosis of persons with unexplained lactic acidosis.”
A 2009 case involved hypothermia, acidosis, and renal failure in a young HIV-positive Los Angeles man “within twelve hours of kombucha tea ingestion,” the authors of a subsequent study assessing the case found. “While kombucha tea is considered a healthy elixir, the limited evidence currently available raises considerable concern that it may pose serious health risks.”
But in this era of kombucha mimosas and kombucha on tap, kombuchamania continues, fueled less by its sweet-and-sour tang than by its alleged ability to grow hair, zap zits, and cure killer diseases. Palmer views its growing popularity with caution.
“When diets are fads, they never seem to last long. But when diet advice is solid and science-based, it stands the test of time.”
by Anneli Rufus on The Daily Beast
CHOMP! is a monthly community dinner featuring 100% vegan dishes, prepared by some of Denver’s up-and-coming aspiring vegan chefs. Taking place on the first Wednesday of every month, CHOMP! is aimed at bringing the young Denver vegan community together, and also providing a place for anybody to come try some great cruelty-free food without having to worry about pretension, judgement, or preaching. It’s just about good food. Food we love, food we want to share, and food which we believe can save the world.
You don’t have to bring anything to Chomp! except yourself and maybe a small donation ($7-$10) to help cover the cost of food and fund future dinners and projects for Plants & Animals. Come out and bring a friend, We hope to see you there!
High Country Kombucha is excited to be a part of this monthly vegan meal event by providing free samples of our totally vegan and healthy kombucha tea. The event takes place the first Wednesday of each month at Green Spaces in Denver. You don’t have to be vegan to enjoy trying a vegan meal so be sure to join us for Chomp! sometime soon.
We had such a great time at the Walking Mountain Science Center that we hope they invite us back in the future. We were greeted by a roomful of interested people and everyone got to preform experiments involving yeast and touched a SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast that is the base for our High Country Kombucha).
Lara Carlson, an educator at the Science Center, started the presentation with some basic information about symbiosis and yeast.
Both Ed and Steve from High Country Kombucha got up to speak and offered more specific information about our kombucha and the authenticity of our symbiotic culture.
Several members of the audience were very interested in how to start their own home brewed kombucha (it’s as easy as using our authentic kombucha tea for your home brewed kombucha base) while others were just hoping to learn why our kombucha makes them feel so good when they drink it.
We were excited to have the opportunity to raise awareness about our product in our own backyard. Huge thanks to the Walking Mountains Science Center for allowing us to present at the first “Science Behind” presentation series of the season. We would love to do this presentation again if the opportunity arises, it went very well and was lots of fun.
Thank you to everyone who attended, we truly appreciate the interest and support.
The Science Behind Kombucha
When: January 18th, 6:30pm
Where: Walking Mountains Science Center in Avon, CO
Cost: FREE
Join Walking Mountains Science Center and High Country Kombucha for an evening of scientific mystery and fantastic fun. We’ll explore the science behind making the curious probiotic fermented tea, Kombucha. For thousands of years, Kombucha has been purported to offer many healing properties. Similar to yogurt, Kombucha contains living probiotic bacteria cultures that can assist in healthy digestion. High Country Kombucha has been making their own brews since 2003 and today offers some of the highest quality and strongest Kombucha on the market.
Come explore your curious nature and learn more about:
You will be able to get your hands dirty, touch the scobies, look at bacterial samples through the microscope and sample some of the Kombuchas made right here in Eagle County!
Seating is limited, please call or email to reserve your space:
(970) 827-9725 or info@walkingmountains.org
Open Space is holding their first special event of the year, this Sunday, January 8th about practices to increase our VIBRANCY.
Our energy flow is affected by a number of things but two of the most essential are Breath and the Foods we eat. We have invited two master teachers to come and share their knowledge and best practices with our open space community:
3pm – 430pm – BREATHE: AWAKEN YOUR NATURAL VITALITY ~ Special Yoga Workshop with Dagini Amba, Master Teacher of Life Divine Yoga
Make your yoga practice more juicy and revitalizing through simple breath techniques and visualizations. You will leave this class refreshed and inspired.
5pm – 7pm – SUPER-FOODS AND HIGH-VIBRATIONAL NUTRITION ~ with Steve Dickman, founder and master-mind behind High Country Kombucha.
Learn about simple nutrients that increase our vibrational frequency, and therefore our health and well being. SteveO will guide us on this journey of discovery through lecture, demonstration, discussion and TASTINGS!
Cost for each class is $12 (members $9) or $20 for both (members $16).
High Country Kombucha is brewed and bottled in Eagle County Colorado where several ski resorts are located. We love the attitudes of the people that live in the Colorado Rockies and their enthusiasm for staying active and living a healthy lifestyle. Below is a video of an avid skier and a day in the back country with a High Country Kombucha. Enjoy!
Thanks for shooting the great video and sharing it with us. We wish we had that kind of powder in Eagle County this season. We’ve had less than average snowfall so far.
Check out our Facebook page for details about this contest starting Monday, January 2nd. We are awarding prizes for photos, images or art submitted that show someone “living the High Life” with High Country Kombucha.
Michael Kang of String Cheese Incident
First place prize is 3 cases of our wonderful Kombucha tea, a High Country logo hoodie sweatshirt and two collector’s cups. There will also be some pretty sweet prizes for second & third place. With three cases of our tea you are fully stocked to participate in the 30 day kombucha challenge taking place in 2012. Sign up on the 30 day kombucha challenge website now and get started anytime after January 2nd.
http://30daykombuchachallenge.com
You can submit pictures you’ve taken of yourself, your friends, or your favorite actor, musician or celebrity. We will also accept drawings and fan art – feel free to get creative but keep it PG rated, please! The winners will be chosen by popular vote on our Facebook page so ask your friends and family to come to our page and vote for your submission. This contest takes place during the first two weeks of January so don’t hesitate! We can’t wait to see your photos and images.
Lara Living the High Life with High Country Kombucha
Kombucha Kamp Shakes Things Up with the New Year’s ReVolution!
Take the 30 day Kombucha Challenge and see how a small change in your diet may make a big change in how you feel everyday. We’re asking you to give up you soda, coffee, energy drink or juice and instead drink 4 to 8 ounces of kombucha 3 to 4 times each day for 30 days and let us know how you feel. The challenge will include recipes, calendars, reminders, kombucha photos and more.
We’ve joined the competition in our industry to offer this challenge to you. Whether you are a relative newbie to our fabulous beverage or a seasoned expert in the field, we’d like you to take the 30 day challenge and tell us how it makes you feel. Check out the website and beat the rush to get signed up. The challenge officially starts on January 2nd but it is a “rolling” challenge which means you can sign up and get started anytime after that date.
BevNet Live Kombucha Article ~ we’re in the News!
BEVNET LIVE: Kombucha Back to 18% Growth; ‘Kombucha Challenge’ Coming; Does Category Need Greater Innovation? Brisk panel at last week’s BevNet Live conference in Santa Monica, Calif, keyed in on vibrant kombucha category, detailing return from mid-year crisis in 2010 and efforts to continue popularization push – even via New Year’s “kombucha challenge.”
For a while of course, fermented-tea segment wasn’t lookin’ assured of remaining vibrant: in Jun 10 when Whole Foods pulled all brands off its shelves because of concerns over excessive alcohol content for nominally NA bevs. Now that’s lookin’ like merest bump in road. Bobbi Leahy, from syndicated researcher SPINS, which tracks natural channel excluding Whole Foods, noted that segment had been scoring robust 18% growth until crisis caused it to hit a wall. But category came back in 2011, rising 11% to $650 mil, and lately is back to 18% growth. National pioneer GT’s – where most of the elevated-alcohol items were found – is still leader, with 80 share in natural, despite losing some shelf space. There are some 44 active brands in natural channel vs 13 in mainstream channels like grocers. (Heck, BBI editor counted 4 different brands just in Portland, Ore, airport stores last summer.) Fastest-growing include GT’s, Kombucha 2000 and Townsend’s; newbies makin’ a splash include St Helens, Ore-based Captured by Porches, which sells lotsa craft beer and kombucha off 3 roving trucks plying Portland streets.
Still, 2,000-yr-old category still lacks awareness among large portion of American public, acknowledged Kombucha Kamp founder Hannah Crum, who’s enlisting High Country, Bucha and others for 30-day “kombucha challenge” around New Year’s, when consumers traditionally resolve to detox and lose weight. They’ll be invited to swap their soda for kombucha “and see what happens,” said Hannah. Brands like Bucha are looking to be “on-ramp” for consumers thru more vibrant, contemporary packaging and less vinegary flavors, said Ron Lloyd, ceo of Bucha brewer B&R Liquid Adventure. Still the best brand-building vehicle is in-store sampling: High Country’s Ed Rothbauer said a demo at Whole Foods typically yields 200-300% lift in volume that day, and gains are sustained for weeks. As sign of grass-roots health, homebrew kits are popping up next to craft-brewing kits in lotsa retailers like Whole Foods, too. “Every commercial brand started as a homebrewer,” Lloyd noted.
Plenty of contrasts and sometimes stresses within segment: between those that remain defiantly raw and those that pasteurize product, those that use clear bottles and those that use tinted bottles, those that make health claims and those that don’t, those that go out as alcoholic and those that remain NA (GT’s is playing in both realms now). And innovation likely could use a boost: best that Lloyd could point to was GT’s addition of chia-seed-based flavors. Tho Celestial Seasonings has garnered some buzz for kombucha-based shot, High Country’s Rothbauer said so far he doesn’t see much movement on it.
Some are movin’ segment intentionally into alcoholic realm, such as Unity Vibration, out of Mich; Captured by Porches, and Beyond Kombucha, from upstate NY, which mixes brewer’s yeast into formula. Blurring with beer is also visible in entries such as Goose Island’s Fleur, Belgian-style pale ale that employs kombucha, and Vanberg & DeWulf’s Lambrucha, mashup of lambic beer and kombucha. Still, noted Hannah, items branded as kombucha tend to do poorly when shelved with craft beers.
Despite segment’s growth, so far it’s proved hard to put finger on exactly who consumer is. Some use it as detox cure, others for probiotic content. Some runners say it helps their knees. “Unique category,” said Bucha’s Lloyd. “Everyone has their own reason for why they’re drinking this stuff” and there’s not been much research so far to learn more. Even celebs that drink the stuff have been double-edged swords: Olympian athletes, on one hand, and 2-time Ironman Triathlon winner who sports High Country logo, but also endlessly troubled Lindsay Lohan on other.
Bud House Sees Potential It seemed a stretch when Bud house American Eagle Distributing Co picked up role as master distributor for nearby High Country Kombucha (BBI, Jun 24). But prexy Jerry Helgeson told BBI the drinks struck a chord when he saw them featured on local news channel while working out. Since major natural foods distrib UNFI works Whole Foods stores but doesn’t call on on-premise accounts, he spotted opportunity there – particularly if High Country moves into alc realm. So is that afoot? No comment for now, said High Country execs.