Columnists, Opinion

HAGERTY: Kombucha: what the heck is it!?

I first heard of kombucha in the spring of my senior year of high school. My friend Mary Anne drank it in our English class. She was a vegan, which at the time was incredibly edgy, especially considering the fact that I went to a very vanilla Catholic school. At first, I didn’t know what to make of kombucha and for quite sometime, I forgot about it.

Kombucha (or ‘booch’ as it’s known in my apartment), has certainly become incredibly trendy, even though it’s been around for centuries. Everyone’s drinking it, not just your edgy vegan pals. Some noteworthy celebs that swear by it are luminaries like Reese Witherspoon and Orlando Bloom. But why? Honestly, I started drinking it because it was so hip and I felt like I was being super healthy. But even when I started hopping on the booch train, I had no idea what kombucha was. Let me preface all of this by saying that kombucha is not juice and certainly does not taste like juice. Even though to some it might be an acquired taste, it has proven health benefits that are worth exploring.

Thanks to some research, I’ve figured out why it is that we should all probably drink booch every once in awhile. First of all, kombucha originally comes from China from over 2,000 years ago. Essentially, it is fermented black tea with sugars from various sources, like fruits and sugarcane. I personally prefer pineapple kombucha. Kombucha is a probiotic, meaning that it contains good, healthy bacteria. One of the benefits of consuming probiotics is that they help with digestion. Kombucha contains a colony of bacteria and yeast that initiates the fermentation process, and it’s the fermentation that makes the booch carbonated.

Drinking kombucha is great for you because it contains high levels of antioxidants that help detoxify the body. The main selling point for kombucha is that it helps support a healthy gut. The antioxidant properties counteract free radicals and essentially streamline the digestive system. Who doesn’t love that? Kombucha isn’t just good for your gut, it’s great for your brain. Kombucha contains vitamin B12 which is linked to increasing energy levels and it helps maintain overall mental well-being. A rather unexpected benefit of drinking booch, is that it seems to help prevent lung disease and it could be used as a treatment method for a lung ailment called silicosis.

Perhaps the kombucha fact most relevant to those who consume other fermented beverages, booch also helps maintain a healthy liver. It’s just a great way to detox — and who doesn’t love a good detox?

My biggest question about kombucha was: “if it’s fermented, does that mean its alcoholic?” According to CNN Health, kombucha contains trace amounts of alcohol. One bottle of kombucha contains one eighth of the alcohol content of a light beer. So in other words, if you’re a serious lightweight, you might feel a slight buzz after chugging eight consecutive bottles of kombucha, and I would not recommend doing that.  

All and all, booch is super great. I do feel like a serious dummy for drinking a ton of kombucha just because it’s trendy, but I’m glad to know that it’s actually good for me. In Boston, craft booch is really popular (the best place to get house made booch has to be Whole Heart Provisions on Cambridge Street in Allston). Vendors at SoWa Open Market sell pricier artisan kombucha, but there’s also a really solid kombucha selection at Star Market — it’s even relatively easy to brew at home. There’s a lot of hype around booch and honestly, I don’t see that hype dying down anytime soon.

 

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