The grocery store I work for is like a smaller, nicer Whole Foods. We have more variety of the "weirder" stuff and I love it. I was a little slow to start as I learned the ins and outs of the job, but I'm learning a ton about how to be more environmentally aware and the importance of eating really good, whole food. Plus I get a discount, so that helps with my food budget.
One of our most popular things we sell is a drink called "Kombucha." I realize that probably most everyone has at least heard of it before and I've seen it on the shelf in the past but never picked it up. On Sunday, I had to straighten the kombucha fridge so I took the opportunity to finally took a look at it and the drink looked disgusting.
There was mold like stuff at the bottom.
And it looked chunky.
Reenactment of my fear.
That's because it is chunky. It's black tea that is fermented with a bunch of yeast and bacteria. Does this sound appealing to anyone yet because it was turning me off.
Until today. My boss tried the multi-green one and looking at the label, the drink has outstanding health benefits. He also drinks a couple a day and swears by them. The guy that I trained with was also curious, bought one then was soon in my line with a return slip for the drink. He said it was disgusting, it exploded everywhere, smelled bad, and, I quote, "tastes like beer. You might like it though."
Sold.
So I bought the multi-green one. You have to be careful as you open it because it fizzes everywhere and as it fizzes, the stuff on the bottom mixes all together and creates this sort of green sludge. It smells horrible too, so I wasn't hopeful this was going to end well. I took a sip and.....it was pretty great. My coworker is right, it did taste a little like beer. And it makes you feel a little buzzed. Not drunk buzzed but a weird buzzed.
I give it an enthusiastic thumbs up. It's clean and refreshing and makes your body feel happy when you drink it. With all the probiotics in it, I'm interested in seeing if I can stop taking them in pill form and drink this tea. I'm usually so open at trying new things, so it surprised me to be hesitant towards it and it definitely taught me to not judge the food by the chunky yeast at the bottom.
Hmmmm, I might still judge food by the chunky yeast at the bottom...but I still might drink it. When I saw the title, all I could think of was the line in "What Lies Beneath" when Claire's friend said "Here, it's Kombucha Mushroom Tea, my psychic gave it to me. It promotes wellness and psychic awareness" or something like that. Love the blog...Miss you so much!!!
ReplyDeletenone of those health benefits are backed up by any kind of scientific research, for the record. It's mainly touted by hippies who are probably experiencing some combination of placebo effects and the little buzz that you do get from it (bear in mind that plenty of things that aren't particularly healthy create a buzz and sense of good feeling). That being said, I imagine it could be good for digestive flora, and it is certainly more healthy than most chemical-laden, sugary drinks. Anyway, it took me a little while to learn that just because things are natural and the person selling them has dreadlocks doesn't mean there's any kind of empirical validity to their claims.
ReplyDeleteTrue. And I did research when I got home and did notice that no real scientific study had been done before. But I will say that I had never heard of getting any sort of buzz from it before and I got one which is really the only reason why I researched it when I got home. Regardless it was pretty good!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I enjoy it too. Certain brands are better than others. I had a housemate who bought a "mother" and fermented her own. It was decent but our living room smelled like feet.
ReplyDeleteThat's foul. I'm not sure I could ever make it myself but it does taste good, even though it smells horrible.
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