Subject: Re: KOMBUCHA - what is it?

From: [email-masked] (Joe Trybyszewski)
Date: Mon, 22 May 1995 18:05:34 GMT

HACKR@.isu.edu wrote:

>I have just run into the mysterious kombucha tea, and I have found
>that sound information is hard to track down.  Could someone point me 
>in a direction.  Apparantly the criticism of the information available
>is that it the studies haven't been very recent.  I plan to do some
>of my own studies with GC and HPLC.  More specifically, I would 
>like to now what happens with the black tea ingredients.  Does the
>"mushroom" metabalizes the stuff?  Also, there are claims that it
>supplies minerals.  Where does it get minerals, since tea and sugar are
>the only ingredients?  I highly doubt it is carrying on fusion.  It
>would be helpful to know what is in the Lipton tea that I use.
>Could someone please help me out?

Kombucha is not a mushroom.  Paul Stamets, a noted mycologist,
describes it as a symbiotic combination of yeasts and bacterias.
I would expect its activity on the black tea and sugar is a
combination of the type of fermentation which takes place with
producing beer, and the "rising" of dough when making bread.
The result is a fermented tea which alledgedly contains beneficial
bacteria, antibiotics, enzymes and other substances, hopefully all
non-harmfull.  Stamets warns this may not be true given the unclean
environments the tea is usually prepare and fermented in.

---

From: HACKR@.isu.edu
Date: 22 May 1995 03:58:46 GMT

---

From: [email-masked] (Tatsuya Okamoto)
Date: 25 May 1995 05:29:26 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, HACKR@.isu.edu says:
>in a direction.

Kombucha is not a mushroom.
The word "Kombu" is Japanese name for Laminaria spp. (Phaeophyceae),
and "cha" stands for tea in Japanese.
Kombucha (or often called "Kobucha") is a mixture of smashed Kombu
(Laminaria spp.) and salt.