Kombucha - Elexir of Life?
October 3, 2008
The Kombucha has been widely regard for thousands of years now as the Elexir of Life. Although there aren’t that many scientific proofs to back up such claims, considering the large amount of people benefiting it from it, there has got to be something about Kombucha which makes it such a popular beverage. Although the use of Kombucha tea dates back two thousand years ago, it became a popular product for the masses just recently. It has a taste similar to no other, because it’s first sweetened and then fermented. The fermentation process neutralizes most of the sugar along with the caffeine, leaving just a hint of delightfully, vinegar-like taste. Brands producing Kombucha tea just keep popping up as this product is becoming the latest hot drink on the American beverage market. You should definitely try it, and most likely, you will get to enjoy it for its delightful and unusual taste along with its health benefits.
Kombucha is the word used to describe not only the drink itself, but also the fungus used to brew it. Kombucha contains less caffeine than a regular tea, since as it was already pointed out, it looses a certain amount of its caffeine during the fermentation process, as well as portion of the sugar. The true believers drink Kombucha every day based on the idea that they will be healthier and live longer. But, those claims are yet to be proven by scientists.
Kombucha is a substance similar to fungus, or better yet, a symbiotic colony of lactobacillus bacteria and yeast. According to the history facts concerning Kombucha, it was first used by the Qin (Tsin) Dynasty of China (221 B.C.E.). The name Kom-bu-cha comes from a Korean physician called Kom-bu, who was the first to introduce the beverage to the Japanese Emperor Ingyo in the year 414 C.E. as a drink with healing properties. After that, it became known as tea of Kom-bu.
The Kombucha culture is usually imported from China, Nepal and Siberia. The Kombucha tea is made by fermenting a given type of sweetened tea (it could be black tea, white tea, Oolong tea) with the special cultures of yeasts and the bacteria known as Kombucha mushroom. It’s not really a mushroom, but that’s how people call it because of its shape and color when it starts forming on top of the tea after the fermentation process. But the thing is that there are lot of different preparation methods and different cultures that can be used, that’s why there are so many different Kombucha teas, although the main ingredients in the final product is still pretty much the same. Once the beverage is finally made, it contains a certain amount of alcohol, acetic acid and ethyl acetate.
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