Avery - BREWERY - KOMBUCHA: healthy recipes for naturally probiotic tea drinks

KOMBUCHA

KOMBUCHA

HEALTHY RECIPES FOR NATURALLY FERMENTED TEA DRINKS

Louise Avery

Photography by Clare Winfield

LOUISE AVERY is the founder of LA Brewery. The company uses all-natural ingredients to brew health-boosting, sparkling teas. They currently supply Selfridges, Leon, Whole Foods, Planet Organic and a whole host of London-based independent cafs and restaurants. Louise lives with her partner in East London, close to her Suffolk brewery, and this is her first book.

CLARE WINFIELD is a photographer specializing in food. Her work has appeared in delicious and Esquire magazines, among other press. For Ryland Peters & Small she has also photographed The New Nourishing, Lemons and Limes The New Porridge and My Vegan Travels.

CONTENTS

I was introduced to kombucha on a trip to Vermont in the United States in 2010, when we found it on draft in a cooperative health food store. After some encouragement from my boyfriend, as ironically I do not really enjoy the taste of regular tea, I tested all three of the flavours available. This was the defining moment as they say It was more than delicious; it had a complex taste profile with a tart, sweet base, with infused fruits and a lingering fizz. I am unsure as to whether I loved because I was feeling nutritionally drained at the time, or because I love fizzy drinks I suspect a combination of the two, and I have not looked back since.

On my return to London, I scanned the health food shops for kombucha and I did find some commercial varieties, but I longed for the micro-brewed version I had fallen in love with in New England. As anyone who becomes hooked on rare specialist foods knows, the only option is to start making it yourself! Not only to save money, but also to understand the process.

We are now in a time where it feels important and culturally relevant to understand how our food is made and where it comes from. Additionally, the benefits of eating fermented foods are touted daily in the press. The link between beneficial bacteria and gut health immunity and brain health are now recognised with continued scientific research.

There is good reason for the growing popularity of fermented foods. There is now much concern with over-sterile environments breeding allergies and intolerances rather than protecting us, as was the original intention. It now transpires that the very bacteria we have been seeking to destroy actually help to protect our bodies by supporting our immune systems. The majority of us will be eating at least one form of processed, sterilized food on a regular basis, and so we need to put live foods back into our body to replace all the nutrients and digestive enzymes that it needs.

Personally, I wanted to change my drinking habits as I had started to experience stomach issues and ulcers are common in my family. I needed an alcohol substitute and something to heal my stomach, liver and immune system.

About a year after that trip to the States, we decided to go on a life-enriching adventure and moved to the Isle of Mull in the inner Hebrides of Scotland. Emotionally and physically worn out by a 95 job, I was drawn away from the city and towards the land. I found a job in a weaving mill on an organic farm on the island, which used only native breed Hebridean sheeps wool and locally sourced plant dyes. At home, my boyfriend and I learned how to make sourdough and foraged for mushrooms and seaweed inspired by living off the land we filled our diets with local goods and I got serious about fermentation.

I ordered my first SCOBY (see ) and followed the instructions on the packet meticulously. My first kombucha was good, but very vinegary, and palatable perhaps only to me. My friends were not quite as excited about it, so I started to experiment with different teas and infusions to create a more appealing brew. And so began a series of labelled bottles hiding in the corner of the room with wild raspberries floating, added fruit juices swirling and herbs infusing within them. I learned very quickly about the perils of over-carbonation and the genuine thrill of watching a bowl of tea fermenting away!

Were back in London now and in recent years I have started to introduce more fermented foods into my diet, such as kimchi and sauerkraut. I have noticed that I no longer suffer from excess irritability or mood swings, equally I no longer feel bloated or get cramps, and I have the energy I need to run my own business.

I ran my first embryonic kombucha business, Lois & The Living Teas, for two years before meeting my current business partners and launching LA Brewery in the Spring of 2017. Lois & The Living Teas allowed me the time to forage and scour seasonal markets so I was able to concoct weekly limited editions, which I would trial in a small group of hand-picked local restaurants and specialist food shops. Those initial two years were invaluable in allowing me to perfect my craft through continual research and development with my first loyal customers.

With the birth of LA Kombucha, my new business partners, William Kendall and Mark Palmer, saw an opportunity to bring kombucha to a much wider audience, while retaining the ethics and craft-brewed methodology of a small business. We built our first craft kombucha brewery in Woodbridge, Suffolk in March 2017, and are currently in the process of building our next scaled up facility on an old airfield, which appeals to my romantic sensibilities.

LA Brewery kombucha is growing nicely and we are now stocked in over 170 shops in the UK, including Selfridges, Leon and Planet Organic, as well as a host of independent foodie shops.

My dream is for kombucha to be recognised as the ultimate alternative to alcohol and over-sweetened soft drinks. I hope that soon it will be widely available in restaurants and bars, on tap and in the fridges, with a loyal following similar to the craft beer industry.

This book is intended to be an enjoyable introduction to the art of brewing kombucha at home, to encourage good health and natural self-healing with some recipes for tasty elixirs.

Kombucha is a naturally sparkling fermented tea full of probiotics, beneficial enzymes and antioxidants. At home, it needs to undergo an initial (first) fermentation before it can be bottled or flavoured in a second fermentation. The first fermentation is driven by a small, pancake-like culture that is added to the tea, called a SCOBY (see ). Known as a health tonic, which, when consumed regularly, helps the body to come into balance and heal itself, kombucha has a distinctive taste, both sweet and tart, with a refreshing lingering fizz. Drinkers often experience a slight natural high, which might be due to its high probiotic content.

The origins of the tonic are mysterious, with several different accounts depending on who you ask. It is commonly believed that kombucha was consumed in China over 2,000 years ago and referred to as the tea of immortality during the Tsin dynasty. Transported west by travellers, it spread across Russia and onwards to Europe and North America.