By Cam Lucadou-Wells
It starts unappetisingly with a ‘symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast’ – or SCOBY – a mushroom-like mass that floats in a jar of brown tea liquid.
The end product is kombucha tea – a benignly yellow, sweet drink that looks like lemonade and it’s a real health tonic for the gut, according to producer Laura Pallas of Wild Ferments.
Holding a PhD in food science, Ms Pallas frequently workshops on fermented vegies and kombucha tea across Melbourne, including Hampton Park in early May.
She said there seems to be a growing yearning for natural ways to feel better.
Ms Pallas had once been wracked by fatigue, IBS and intestinal parasite giardia that required two rounds of antibiotics.
“Antibiotics are good but doctors don’t tell you to take probiotics. The antibiotics just wipe out your gut.”
She recovered via a long journey of cutting down the sugars that promoted “bad bacteria”. Three years ago, pro-biotic properties of fermented vegies and kombucha made a great difference to her gut and overall health.
“Myself, I feel more energy. I feel I don’t get sick as often,” she said.
“It helps keep a healthy weight and helps the liver to detoxify. It is supposed to prevent kidney stones and cancer, and protects the stomach lining.
“I’m not saying I’m 100 per cent cured but it feels I’m doing my body good.”
This wonder substance contains a probiotic yeast saccharomyces boulardii, which lives in the gut for several days immune from antibiotics and stomach acids.
Its impact requires an ongoing, daily ingestion, Ms Pallas said.
It takes just 10 minutes a week to keep the kombucha tea alive by decanting up to 90 per cent of the starter solution and topping it up with fresh tea.
It lives in a jar under a cloth at room temperature, kept away from the kitchen where airborne mists of cooking oil can harm the kombucha culture.
Wild Ferments sells kombucha starter or SCOBYs online, and is working on a pomegranate-flavoured kombucha tea.
Ms Pallas is holding a kombucha-brewing workshop at Hampton Park library, 6 May, 2-4pm. Details from Casey Cardinia Libraries on 5990 0100.
