Have you ever seen one of these bottles selling in Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s? Do you ever wonder what it is and why the heck each bottle cost $4? A few months ago, I decided to find out what it is myself and forked out $4 for a raspberry flavored one. Once I opened the cap, the liquid started fizzing and foaming (naturally carbonated). I took a sip and it tasted nothing like what I was expecting. The drink was quite sour and had an odd after taste to it. I didn’t like it at all, but I figured that I should finish it and make it worth $4. About fifteen minutes later, I was in for a surprise.

I suddenly had a burst of energy, even more than the burst I get from Red Bull. At the same time, I became a tiny bit tipsy and started to sweat. The tipsy feeling wore off in about 10 minutes but the energy burst kept me going for a good few hours. After that incident, I was determined to find out WTF this drink is and what is it supposed to do to you. Visiting the trusty Wikipedia entry on Kombucha helped me find out that this drink promises vitality restoration and DOES NOT guarantee to cure anything. The odd thing was that even though the drink made no promises, many Kombucha Tea drinkers report illnesses vanishing. Kombucha tea is a natural detox tea that helps your body get rid of toxins. Some stories I’ve heard are: fat people becoming skinny, skinny people becoming healthy, cancers stopped growing, people sleeping better, people waking up more refreshed. I also have my own stories too, but I will go into that later. This all sounded interesting but $4 per bottle is too expensive to make this a daily drink.

I then found out that I could actually brew fresher Kombucha detox teas myself at home at minimal cost (pennies to a gallon). I bought a starter mushroom (that will last forever) for $12 and then followed the tutorial from Wikihow.  For brewing equipment, I just grabbed a glass far I found laying around the house. I used green tea as my tea of choice since green tea had its own healthy characteristics. Within a week, my first batch finished and I had my own Kombucha green tea detox!

My parents and I have been drinking Kombucha daily detox tea for the past 2 months. After drinking it a few times, it starts to taste good. Here is a list of our success stories to date:

1. Dad: My dad has a kidney problem so he usually gets out of bed 6-8 times per night to urinate. After drinking this tea for a month, he’s down to urinating once a night and sometimes none at all!
2. Mom: One day my mom was extremely exhausted and was too tired to cook dinner for the family. She drank a glass and became fully energetic and fully restored within 30 minutes. Also my mom is going through menopause and one of the side affects is frequent midnight insomnia. Her daily drinking has also kept her sound asleep for many nights now. Lastly, ever since she started drinking Kombucha Tea my mom has gone through her periods without any backaches.
3. Me: A month ago I had a sore throat. I drank a cup of a Kombucha Tea and 4 hours later, my sore throat was gone. Maybe it’s a bad correlation but what else could it be? I also feel that my junk food cravings are lessening and my fresh food cravings are increasing. Right now if I had to choose between a Twix bar and an apple, I would choose the apple. Other than that I don’t notice anything different except for the energy burst (maybe it’s because I’m still young and I don’t have an illness yet). Since it does give me an energy burst, I’m assuming that it can be classified as one of the few fat burner foods to incorporate into your diet.

Again, it’s quite easy and cheap to start brewing. All you need is:

• starter mushroom
• medium-sized glass jar
• tea of choice
• sugar
• distilled vinegar
• thin cloth
• rubberband
• water

I’m curious what this drink will do to you too. If you decide to ever try this drink please let me know what happens! Leave a comment!