Similar to vinegar, kombucha is made with a scoby (a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast), or mother, which looks like a blobby creature from the deep. Homemade kombucha is an enjoyable project and really cheap to make (it’s essentially just the cost of some sugar and a teabag), but it’s also a skill that takes a little refining. Over-ferment it, and you end up with vinegar or, worse, it could explode during the secondary fermentation, especially if you forget to “burp” the bottle to release the excess gas that gives kombucha a natural effervescence.
And, while making your own kombucha is fun, the range on the market now is vast and of really high quality, with some even being created expressly as non-alcoholic alternatives to cocktails and wine. Kombucha is naturally lower in sugar than most sweetened drinks – the fermentation process consumes sugar, but the amount left will depend on how long it’s fermented for. Some are completely sugar-free, but many of those are sweetened with steviol glycosides and erythritol, which makes them ultra-processed foods, and I think they taint the flavour, even though they’re derived from natural sources. Most of the products I tested had 2-3g sugar per 100ml, which is much lower than cola, say, which has about 10.6g, or the equivalent of about seven teaspoons per can! I tasted all these kombuchas chilled and straight from the vessel (and with water breaks in between).
