28 Comments
User's avatar
Ian Winter's avatar

I live among kombuchafarians where tribute is paid bi-monthly and it arrives in a big box, so I am both chuckling and keeping my head down at your heresy.

Lucy Sweet's avatar

I don’t understand it. It can’t be that good for you, can it??

Wendy Varley's avatar

Heheh! Guilty as charged. The globby ‘starter’ being called a scoby nearly put me off (sounds - and looks - like bogey), but I’m addicted to one that doesn’t taste like vinegar. And yep, made in Scotland. Non-alcoholic beer for people who don’t like beer. (Me.)

Lucy Sweet's avatar

Yes I found out about that and it put me off even more! Well, you enjoy your mouldy tea, Wendy - I’ll stick to lovely beer made out of yeast and fish bladders

Faye Davidson's avatar

My daughter is mad for the fermentation… absolutely vile but then I’m weirdly drawn to those awful cocktail mirrors so it’s clearly me that’s got a problem 🍹

My Monday is better for having read this, as I guffaw, guffaw whilst making my delicious and mold free coffee (nb. If coffee contains moldy shite I want to remain ignorant please)

Katrina's avatar

I so very much want to name the offending brand of kombucha VILENESS! But as I am leaving the country it seems kinda rude to do so 😍 Thank goodness Ian drank them instead 🤣

Lucy Sweet's avatar

Hahahaha! Please don’t - the kombucha underground gangs will come for me in the night and ferment me 🤣

Lucy Sweet's avatar

Haha yes, it is very much a question of taste. Glad it made you lol and enjoy your unfermented coffee!

Fiona Gibson's avatar

Confession: back in 2017 a son of mine started the Fermentation Society at Glasgow University...

Lucy Sweet's avatar

A kombucha maverick! I bet that smelled nice. Was it a large bucket?

Rebecca Bonnington's avatar

I worked in Dolcis when I was 14. I sold cerise coloured stilettos to unsuspecting Mancunians & swore blind they would stretch when you wore them around the house for a bit.

Lucy Sweet's avatar

Hahaha! This is a very powerful position for a 14 year old to be in

Rebecca Bonnington's avatar

It went to my head. 🤪I was top sales person for fancies - the extra shoe spray you never needed - for the entire four months I stuck it out for.

Graham Dallas's avatar

The first thing I was reminded of is some mate's very dodgy home-brew cider, it was full of alive "stuff". I'm sure like many other fads it will pass most of us by.

Cherry Coombe's avatar

I am related to one who makes no secret of her affair with the stuff. Since I am really getting into being curmudgeonly, I'm going to play right into my much despised Boomer stereotype and say it out loud. 'Sour dough starter, £4.99 plus p&p' can go the same way as miniature fancy labelled bottles of eurgh for £3.68'.

Lucy Sweet's avatar

Bottles of eurgh is the perfect description!

El's avatar

Pickles > ferments always afaic

Nicola Blackwell's avatar

I got onto kombucha after a holdiday with a GP friend who was talking about the three Ks (no, not that one) - Kerfir, Kale and Kombucha. I was already onto Kefit yoghurts and now I'm onto raspberry Kombucha. I was dubious but this one just tastes like pop that I can tell myself is good for me, so I'm happy. 😆 I think my gut likes it? Who the fuck knows.

Anna Sayburn Lane's avatar

Strangely nostalgic for a man with a piano tie. Even in the 80s I knew how naff they were.

Candy Morris's avatar

I hate kombucha. And peanut butter.

But those mirrors now......

Carrie Stanley's avatar

what ? kombucha is my life fluid -sounds wrong. Just sitting here drinking my Fix8 and thinking about fermentation… Personally I am now addicted to the craze for dirty fermented drinks -olive water in martinis -yes please! Gherkin water finds its way into much of my cooking -belchtastic . 🤪

Lucy Sweet's avatar

So many people quietly fermenting out there! I’m going to lose subscribers over this… it’s like a kombucha deep state

Carolyn Palot-watts's avatar

Hi Lucy

I know I’m very late to your party and am trying to catch up on all that I’ve missed BUT:

Have you dealt with Matcha? I’ve just cone from the little Co-op in our village and am traumatised by seeing ‘strawberry matcha cookies’ 😳. They present like a bag of tiny dried cow pats - green and with strange lumpy bits (strawberries, presumably). Please investigate

Lucy Sweet's avatar

I have! But I will probably have to deal with it again…

Carolyn Palot-watts's avatar

Well pop into the Co-op! It’s worse than the M & S sarnie!!

Claire Rigby's avatar

I love the vinegar juice. But I have the decency to feel slight shame.

Peter Whewell's avatar

I think I have incurable pareidolia (or lookalikeitis, to use the clinical term). I’m forever seeing resemblances between things & people, e.g. The weird sea creatures on Stingray/Nigel Farrago. Today, the peanut butter space lady has Kate Bush’s face. I may need medical advice…