What's the deal with Kombucha?

So I have an uncle who is a chinese medicine practitioner. His opinion is that booch is very expensive for the benefits you get from it. I love the stuff but try not to spend too much on it. I definitely notice a positive effect on my digestion and on the mood of my gut brain. (Our gut has it’s own nervous system) If it is practical to make it at home then I highly recommend it. If you enjoy gardening or other types of crafty like hobbies you may find a lot of enjoyment in crafting your own booch.

Jun is great too. It is a similar drink but made with green tea and honey.

Also, “expensive” is a relative term. If you are drinking $50 bottles of wine and $5 cups of tea often then having $4 bottles of kombucha could be affordable.

I should mention that I live in northern California where booch is very popular and I know plenty of people who swear it has changed their life.

Hey, I am totally hooked on to the booch. After brewing Kombucha for a year, I started brewing Jun Tea and the results have been very impressive.
https://www.vahdamteas.com/blogs/recipes/we-brewed-jun-tea-and-discovered-the-ultimate-recipe-to-brew-a-perfect-batch

Yes, what is the deal with Kombucha? I’m not here to have a heated debate but. . . . .

I’ve had kombucha as long as I can remember living in Japan.

I don’t know what it morphed into in other countries, but kombu in Japanese means seaweed or kelp. Cha (茶) as many people know is tea. You can buy kombu in dried form flavored or unflavored. The flavored konbu is salty so it goes great with rice. The unflavored kombu is sometimes used to add taste to broth so you might find it floating in the pot at Japanese Shabu Shabu restaurants. Konbucha is tea with seaweed or kelp added to it.

So what is the fermented concoction referred to as kombucha?

Coincidently, I’ve been reading a book on stomach health, where an MD talks about recent research into the microbiome (the various bacteria, etc. in your stomach, which acts symbiotically to help you digest food). he presents convincing data that a more diverse microbiome is associated with better health. Kombucha is one of half a dozen suggestions he makes for creating a more diverse collection of gut bacteria. So, it’s no longer just a folk remedy.

I just bought a (expensive) bottle at whole foods. It tastes more like fruit juice than tea, but supposedly is full of the good bacteria. We’ll see if it improves my health.