Nathan Hague

Well it’s official – the kombucha craze has finally hit Thailand, and in a huge way! That’s all fine, but those of you that don’t know much about kombucha might be wondering what types of kombucha drink exist? Allow me to take you through some of the common types we have here in Thailand!

1. What Is Kombucha?

First of all, let’s quickly recap on what kombucha actually is. If you know this already, feel free to skip to the next section. If you’re still reading here, it means I can tell you that kombucha is a drink that’s over 2000 years old! (Well, so is beer too – but we’ll focus on the types of kombucha drink that exist, rather than the billions of beer brands and types!)

Kombucha is a fermented tea drink that is made in exactly the same way today, it was made over the passage of time.

Basic Ingredients Of Kombucha

(Makes 4L / 1 Gallon)

• 16g Tea – black, green or white tea
• 250g Sugar
• 4L Water
• 1 x SCOBY culture – we’ll talk about this is a moment! – better to have the liquid rather than just the SCOBY too. Try and have 500ml of starter liquid for maximum success!)

How To Make Kombucha

Honestly, kombucha is one of the easiest drinks ever to make, and super-forgiving if you’ve never made a fermented drink before! I have a way more detailed article on this with step by step pictures, but here’s the basic method for you:

• You boil the water and then add the tea to it.
• Leave to steep for at least 20 minutes – longer is fine, but you’ll just get a more stronger flavour at the end when your kombucha is ready
• Once you have steeped the tea for your period of time, remove and leave the hot water to come down to room temperature.
• Once the water is at room temperature, THEN add in your SCOBY culture! The reason we add in once the water is cooled, is that there are beneficial microbes that live in the SCOBY. Remember how in old films they used to “clean” medical implements in scalding hot water? That was to kill off any bacteria and bad microbes and organisms. It’s really effective, and so if we apply that same scalding hot water to our Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast (yup, that’s what SCOBY actually stands for!) then you can now understand why we only add it to room temperature water!
• Now mix and then pour into some glass or 304 steel container, cover and leave in a dark area at room temperature for at least 7 days.

After 7 days, start to try some daily until you get to a sour and tart level that is balanced with your preferred sweetness level. As soon as you hit that level, then you can bottle and store in the fridge, OR you can do what we call a ‘second ferment’. It is at this point that I’ll now finally talk about the different types of kombucha drink you get in Phuket, now you know how every single kombucha on the planet starts out!

2. Same Drink. Many Ways

There are 3 types of kombucha you’ll find around the World – including Phuket kombucha brands and types. Broadly speaking, you’ll find them all across the world EXCEPT in devout Muslim countries, where the question of “is kombucha halal or not” is still being debated.

Homemade Kombucha

Yup, the same stuff you make in your kitchen or can buy from your next-door neighbour. Follow the recipe above and set your stopwatch for 7 days and then get stuck in!

Commercial Kombucha

These are types of kombucha drink that you can find at any convenience or grocery store in Thailand (or across the rest of the World). You’ll find them possibly on two different areas in Thailand stores: On the shelves near other regular sodas and craft drinks, and also in the refrigerated section. I can’t begin to tell you my sheer frustration with the non-refrigerated “shelf stable” types of kombucha drink! Why? Well, a raw kombucha has all sorts of beneficial bacteria and microbes in them (also known as being, “probiotic”).

These same gut-friendly microbes keep the bottled kombucha fermenting until you drink it. One of the most important parts of the kombucha experience, is that your gut health is directly linked to consuming live probiotic foods and drinks. Now if your kombucha has been made “shelf stable”, then this means the kombucha has been pasteurised (remember the scalding water example earlier in the article? This is a form of pasteurisation), and so there are no microbes in the kombucha. None. They’re ALL dead – including the beneficial good ones for our gut! You are drinking a dead drink with nothing in there that is going to add to your health.

Rant over. But please look for “raw” on the label of your kombucha to know you’re getting the good gut-friendly stuff! (*cough* KombuchaWOW *cough*)

Hard kombucha

At the time of writing this article, we don’t have hard kombucha in Phuket or anywhere legally in Thailand. Hard kombucha means it is deliberately made alcoholic, and is a drink that is competing for your attention the same as any other alcoholic craft beverage, or alcoholic seltzer. Most are also shelf stable, but then you can make the argument that you’re not really drinking a hard kombucha for the health effects to start with, so I personally have no issues with this type of kombucha drink as you’re getting what’s on the label 🙂

How To Make Your Own Hard Kombucha

You can also make your own hard kombucha by following the recipe above, and doing what’s known as a “second ferment” – commonly known as “2F”. This means once the kombucha is to your taste preference, what you’ll do is to then add some additional brewers yeast, and add some more sugar into the 1F kombucha. While brewing alcoholic kombucha in Thailand is technically illegal due to Thai brewing laws, you might add a “champagne yeast” like this one to your 1F kombucha. Once you have added the yeast and the additional 20g of sugar, you’ll need to make sure you fit an airtight seal to the container you’re fermented in. MAKE SURE it has an airlock to let the CO2 escape without letting air into the container. Leave for 5 more days and start to test it again to see if you’re liking the levels!

Again, remember home brewing alcohol is technically still illegal in Thailand. I was just talking about this for education purposes. Do at your own risk 🙂 Maybe these archaic laws will lift in the future to give Thailand some amazing legally-homebrewed hard kombucha, but we’ll see..

Righto, that’s the three basic types of kombucha drink explained. So now I can talk about a few more sub-categories we can break kombucha down into.

3. Kombucha Subcategories

Remember earlier when I talked about how you can run a “second ferment” or “2F”? Well, that’s where we have the most types of kombucha drink imaginable! Read on..

Non-flavoured kombucha

OK, so this is our basic 1F kombucha that has nothing more added to it. It’s still just the tea, water, sugar and SCOBY that’s been brewed for however long you like your kombucha sourness, tartness and sweetness levels to be – and then bottled. No additional flavours, no added sugar, no nothing!

To this day, I personally do still like 1F unflavoured kombucha. This is a good thing, as I have to sample a LOT of 1F kombucha batches daily at our kombucha factory! It’s straight out of our fermentation barrels, and I sample around half a litre of unflavoured raw kombucha every single day during my quality assurance testing. Lucky I like kombucha eh? I actually prefer our delicious jun kombucha in it’s raw unflavoured form – it’s just… *chefs kiss*

Flavoured kombucha

Now we’re talking! This is where you get to have the maximum amount of fun flavouring your own base 1F kombucha, OR you get to try all the amazing taste combinations such as our own KombuchaWOW Apple Pie or our legendary KombuchaWOW Phuket Blue flavours!

What this flavoured kombucha means, is that in the 2F, the brewer has commonly added fruit, herbs, spices or honey. There is a truly unlimited amount of flavour combination you can add to your own 1F kombucha, and ALL you have to do, is to add whatever you LIKE to your 1F kombucha – but be sure to take out the SCOBY before you add the flavours!

Add whatever you like, and then cover again and leave for another 5-7 days or until you get the flavour profile you’re looking for!

I can personally recommend adding a cup of mashed fresh strawberries into your 1F as a great starter into flavouring your own kombucha. From there – experiment with more exotic flavours such as hops and even lavender!

4. Still Or Sparkling?

The final types of kombucha drink category are down to another personal preference you may have on whether you like a flat kombucha, or one that’s getting those bubbles to really hit your tongue!

Still kombucha

Whether you are just bottling 1F, or you’re adding a weird and wacky flavour combination of ingredients for your 2F: You might prefer to simply have the flavours and then bottle without sparkling bubbles. This is fine, as sometimes you want the tart sourness coupled with the sweetness and tanginess – without carbonation. This is totally fine, and there are some great brands out there that DON’T have any carbonation in them.

Sparkling

This is where the kombucha has been naturally-carbonated (or had those bubbles artificially added by Manufacturers). There’s no “right” or “wrong” way of adding those prized bubbles, although – and this is super important to remember: Bottle-conditioned kombucha that has been bottled with extra “priming” sugar WILL ALMOST ALWAYS have a higher alcohol ABV level than you might be comfortable with!

The reason for this, is back to the start of the article where I talked about the fermentation process where the SCOBY culture turns the sweetened tea mix into a delicious tangy kombucha over the 7 day fermentation cycle. It’s doing this because the “Y” in the SCOBY stands for “yeast”. And any time you add sugar to yeast, you’re going to get alcohol. This is natural and cannot be stopped.

Homebrewed kombucha that is sparkling 99% of the time has had additional sugar (this is called “priming” sugar) added just before bottling, OR the natural fruit sugar (“fructose”) will act as the priming sugar – and in both cases the yeast has a sugar source to ferment and produce carbon dioxide aka “the delightful bubbles of awesomeness”. Yay. Downside though: Yeah, you’re going to have an uncontrollable and unpredictable amount of alcohol in your homebrewed kombucha.

Be careful out there – this alcohol limit can be as high as a very strong beer in a lot of cases!

This is the main reason why Manufacturers like us here at KombuchaWOW, artificially add the carbonation into our kombucha: We can control the entire brewing process, and we make sure batches are always consistent with the right taste and the right bubble experience for you each and every time.

Final Thoughts!

ANNNND that’s my full super-duper breakdown of the types of kombucha drink you can expect to find here in Phuket and around Thailand. Actually, it’s the entire World – article is relevant in whichever country you’re going to be buying your booch from!

Hope you learned some stuff today hey!

And as always, if you want to message Alice or myself (Nate), then head to our socials over at Facebook, Instagram or TikTok. We LOVE reading your comments. And hey – if you want to post a picture of you with our booch, or you want to do a few cheeky little KombuchaWOW reviews on your fave flavours, (*cough* mine’s Apple Pie *cough*) then please be sure to tag with #kombuchawow ..if we see your pic and like it, you might find a little something in your inbox from us!

Peace out and booch on!

Nate