*if only...

The above headline for the online version of an article that appeared in the print edition of Auckland’s Metro Magazine (the original article appeared under the name "The first comprehensive* New Zealand kombucha tasting") certainly caught our attention a couple of weeks ago when it appeared online.

After reading the opening paragraph, they definitely had our attention:
“The first comprehensive* tasting of every bottle of buch in the country, blind-tasted by Metro.
(*One prominent brand wished not to be included in this tasting lest it become associated with inauthentic buch. A couple of others just didn’t reply).”

“So, where did our WabiO kombucha score in the opinion of the esteemed tasters of the lifestyle magazine?” we wanted to know. The answer was a bit sobering.
No, WabiO kombucha did not appear near the bottom of the list – we didn’t appear at all.
But, but, but… Wasn’t this supposed to be the first “comprehensive tasting of EVERY kombucha in New Zealand"? Why was WabiO not included? (And no, we were neither the one refusing inclusion nor did we ignore inquiries by the magazine.)
After closer look at the "comprehensive" list of every kombucha in New Zealand, it started to dawn on us: this list was far from comprehensive and nowhere near the full list of kombucha made in New Zealand.
But let us explain...

Even though the list sported a rather impressive list of 34 kombuchas, they were manufactured by a mere 10 breweries (one of them being Australian, however, so really only 9 kiwi brewers).  By our last count (the market is in constant flux with new breweries seemingly starting every month in the last couple of years or so), we have 32 kombucha breweries in New Zealand that I’m aware of (see list at the end of this article and image above). And we're bound to have overlooked someone… So, how can a ranking of 28% of New Zealand’s kombucha breweries be called “comprehensive” and “every bottle of kombucha in New Zealand”? We’re as confused as you are.

Sure, they included multiple flavours from every brewery, but even then, the picture nationwide would likely not be any different. A conservative estimate of flavours per brewery would be around 3-4 (we know of a few breweries only producing 2 or 3 flavours, but the majority produce 5-6 different flavours like us). That would bring the total to something like 100-150 flavours/bottles of kombucha in New Zealand. Pretty impressive, we think. Much more so than 34...

So, the question now would be why this “comprehensive review” is so incomplete?

First off, some of the biggest and most of the oldest kombucha breweries in New Zealand are missing in this review – Rene’s Kombucha being a notable exception. We were about the third or fourth kombucha brewery in New Zealand when we started brewing as WabiO in 2012 (we had been brewing as Earthwise Gourmet for a Farmer's Market stall a couple of years prior to that). The first commercial brewery in New Zealand was Kombucha King, which started about 3 years before then. In the 2 years after we started, a number of breweries, which count now amongst the biggest in the country, started and none of them, except Rene’s Kombucha, was included in this article.

The second thing that jumps out when reading through the list is that it seems strangely Auckland-centered. Sure, Metro is an Auckland magazine – but they said “every bottle of kombucha in New Zealand”, not "in Auckland". There are at least eight breweries in the South Island (four alone here in Christchurch), but only one made it onto the list…

Granted, many kombucha breweries in New Zealand service a small geographic region. But if one were to taste-test all of New Zealand’s kombuchas, it wouldn’t be hard to get them shipped. And obscurity doesn’t seem to be hindrance to making it onto Metro’s list, either. A number of the breweries we had never heard of (which doesn’t mean much, since they likely didn’t exist a little while ago), and a brand we never heard of, called  “Baby/Bestie”, is apparently not even available in a bottle but only by the glass in a particular hospitality establishment. In comparison to that, 90% of the breweries in the list below are far, far less obscure and much easier to source directly.

Speaking of obscurity: WabiO won a Cuisine Magazine Artisan Award in 2016 for our “The Headless” Kombucha. So, while we are currently mainly available in Canterbury, we certainly aren’t obscure or hidden too well to be found.

Lack of availability in Auckland can’t really be a true reason, either. The majority of the bigger brands that are missing in the article are available in Auckland. And all of them are produced in the North Island. The missing inclusion of New Zealand’s pioneers,  Kombucha King (Napier), was especially puzzling. Although, they just closed their business a couple weeks ago – but Metro couldn’t have known that for their July/August 2019 print edition…

So, what really is it then? Laziness of the editor in researching which kombucha breweries really exist New Zealand? Some sort of corporate article sponsoring that’s not disclosed? We’re clueless and just a tad disappointed.

Articles like this are harmful for a small industry like ours. While it’s great to do comparison tastings (there should be MANY more of these), to proclaim that the selection of barely more than a quarter of New Zealand kombuchas represents “every kombucha in New Zealand” could be seen as either misleading or straight deception. We get it – articles with a title of “Every”, “Best” and such simply sell much better than “some of the best” – but it’s dishonest journalism. If you state that you’re ranking “every kombucha” in New Zealand (with the admitted exception of 3 brands), then you better do your best to actually source EVERY kombucha in New Zealand.

The people missing the most by reading articles like this are the trusting readers. They trust that they’re well informed and might even go out and buy “the best kombucha in New Zealand” (which is a highly subjective manner in any case), while they are unknowingly kept ignorant of  more than two thirds of the kombucha produced here.

I encourage you all to read through the list of New Zealand kombucha breweries below and try to seek one out that’s not included in the Metro article. You might find some real gems among them…


New Zealand Kombucha Breweries (as of Sep 2019)
Please shout out if you know of anyone we’ve missed…
 
Awaken Kombucha  (Timaru)
Baby/Bestie ???
Banjo Brews  (Blenheim)
Batchwell  (Auckland)
Block 5  (Tauranga)
Born and Raised  (Christchurch)
Canterbury Kombucha  (Christchurch)
Daily Organics  (Matakana)
Everybody's Kombucha  (Auckland)
Evolve Kombucha  (Auckland)
Good Buzz  (Tauranga)
Good Fizz  (Auckland)
Happy Belly Ferments  (Wairarapa)
K4  (Northland)
Kapowai Brewing Co  (Dunedin)
Kate's Kombucha  (Masterton)
KB Kombucha  (Wellington)
Kombucha Bros / Renegade Ferments  (Nelson)
Kombucha City  (Auckland)
Lyttel Ninja  (Christchurch/Lyttelton)
Mama's Brew Shop  (Auckland)
Mama Zing  (Northland)
New Leaf Kombucha  (Auckland)
Nutrition by Nature  (Northland)
Organic Mechanic  (Auckland)
Papa's Kombucha  (New Plymouth)
Rene's Kombucha  (Northland)
Rombucha  (Hamilton)
Something Big Is Brewing  (Hamilton)
The Drink Co Kombucha  (Hawke's Bay)
WabiO Kombucha  (Christchurch)
Yeah Brew  (Dunedin)

It's been a busy 2 months here at Wabi O. And quite an unusual time, indeed. So much has happened, it's hard to stay on top of it all.
But here's a short breakdown of the exciting events of the recent past.

It all started when I was invited as a speaker to the ConversatioNZ conference, an event that was organized to start a conversation about food in New Zealand, in early May. It was a great honour to be a speaker amongst a fantastic lineup of talks by leading New Zealand chefs, food writers, thinkers and artisan producers. The day produced a huge amount of inspiration to the presenters as well as an audience of over 100 attendees. And it truly WAS the beginning of a lot of conversations, many of which are just in the beginning at this stage. But I can already see a lot of synergies as well as collaborations coming out of this. Watch this space...

Also in early May, I was interviewed by Helen Jackson for RadioLIVE's Home & Garden Show about kombucha (here's a link to the RadioLIVE kombucha interview).

In June, we handed out free samples of our kombucha at the Lyttelton Festival of Lights and people could get a first taste of a new flavour we might bottle as a limited edition in the not-too-distant future.

A few weeks later, one of my dreams came true. I got an email. An email from Radio New Zealand National. From the editor of my all-time-favourite radio show "This Way Up". A few emails and phone calls later, I had host Simon Morton (see photo at the top of this post) in our brewery. He's a true legend and it was great recording a show with him. I showed him how kombucha is brewed, made him chew on a little SCOBY and let him pet a big one... It was awesome! After the hard work of recording was done, we settled on some couches and  sipped on tea and kombucha.
We had lots of fun recording this interview and you can hear the full audio on the RNZ kombucha page.

As you can see, it's been a busy and exciting time. And it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon!

The news about a new government-funded treatment for gout has been hitting the media since yesterday. Basically, the new medication should provide an alternative to the other anti-gout medications on the market already. All of them have in common that they reduce the amount of uric acid in the blood.
New Zealand is often called the gout-capital of the world and the occurrences of gout are 2-2.5 times higher in certain groups of the population than world average. Especially high occurrences of gout are found among men of Maori descent.

Gout is caused by an accumulation of uric acid in the blood and ensuing deposits of urate crystals in and around the joints. This usually results in severe pain around the joints.
Uric acid is formed in the liver through the breakdown of a component called purine which we derive from certain foods. High-purine foods include meat, certain types of fish and alcohol. Alcohol can have an especially detrimental effect, since it tends to also inhibit the excretion of uric acid which, in turn, leads to increased levels of uric acid in the blood.

So, where does kombucha fit in with all this?
The kombucha culture requires sugar and purin for its own metabolism. And remember, purin is the the compound that's converted into uric acid. Now, kombucha takes the food-derived purin and digests it, therefore preventing the formation of excess uric acid in the body. Kombucha's metabolic products are water-soluble and discharged from the body via the bladder. 
Kombucha is therefore a great aid in any treatment of gout but can also be used in gout prevention.

Recommended further reading:
C. Dufresne, E. Farnworth (2000), Tea, Kombucha, and health: a review, Food Research International 33, 409-421
Tietze, Harald W. (1995). Kombucha: The Miracle Fungus. p. 57, London: Salamander Books. ISBN 978-1-85860-029-1

It's been far too long since our last kombucha workshop and I have promised some of you to host some more workshops this year.

So, here it is: Wabi O's first Kombucha brewing workshop for 2013!

When: Sunday, 14th April 2-4 p.m.

To make it most beneficial for everyone, we'll restrict the number of participants to 10. If we get more interest than that, I'm happy to host another one.
If you're interested in attending, please send me an email at support(at)wabio.co.nz

I've borrowed the title of today's blog post - Up here for Dancing - from the album of the same name by New Zealand band Tono and the Finance Company. One reason being that I really like Tono's music (go and catch one of his amazing live shows), but it also expresses all that defines Wabi O.
But let me explain...

I don't know whether you've tried our kombucha yet, but one type of feedback that we receive over and over again is that of amazement. Amazement about what we are creating - creating by hand and with heart. From the content of the bottle to the artwork of our labels - it all follows our vision of creating art, our art.
When you drink Wabi O Kombucha, you give us the opportunity to share something with you that we strongly believe in. You allow us - that is Warren if you're in the US and me, Jo, if you're in New Zealand - to touch you with our art. It's not art in the traditional sense, but the resulting creation of our heart and soul.
We strive to make the best kombucha in the world - and we don't let 'economics' or 'standardization' or 'mass appeal' water down and dilute our art. We don't believe in adding fruit juice or other flavouring agents to our kombucha - we don't have anything to mask or hide. Our kombucha wears its heart on its sleeve, so to speak.

The beauty of small batch production is the small variations between batches. What would be the horror for producers of standardized products is our excitement. Just yesterday I got a call from one of the lovely Piko staff and was congratulated on the latest batch of our Wizard kombucha which was 'absolutely amazing, by far the best so far'. And it's not like she didn't like this particular kombucha before - it was just that THIS particular batch was stellar. Sure, there's something comforting and easy about standardized  products (like teabags, for example), but there's no art, no surprise in them. And it's exactly that surprise that touches and inspires people.

Up here for dancing: Enjoy yourself and have fun doing what you love!

The only real principle we have as a company is this:
Have fun with what you do - or stop doing it.

We don't have to brew kombucha (and it's often pretty hard work doing it) - but we love to create fantastic tasting drinks that are good for your well-being. If we didn't enjoy making them they wouldn't be what they are. And, as per our one principle, we wouldn't continue making them.

We don't paint or make music, our artistic expression is kombucha. And it is a privilege to be able to share our art with you. You are our motivation to perfect our art, to soar to new heights. And we thank you for that.

I love New Zealand!
Where else can you spend a week in what feels like absolutely primal wilderness - just a few hours away from home and only 20 minutes from the nearest cafe!
I just returned from a wonderful and soul-refreshing trip to Mt. Cook and Fjordland - rock climbing and tramping and enjoying the wild. The photo above was taken at our return to the car (and some Wabi O Kombucha), coming out of the Greenstone Valley after crossing over from the Caples Valley via Steel Creek.

Despite it being the middle of summer, the saddle above Steel Creek received some fresh snow the night before our crossing and we were greeted with a magical dusting of white to contrast with the intense colours of New Zealands sub-alpine environments.
Steel Creek doesn't see much traffic despite its location between two of New Zealand's busiest tramping valleys - the Greenstone and Caples Valleys. It's a bit more demanding than the two popular tracks, but mainly due to its length (it took us about 8.5 hours to get from Upper Caples to Greenstone Hut and we were walking pretty quickly). A bit of windfall on the Greenstone end made for some more interesting travel...
While the weather was perfect for the crossing, the next day saw some heavy rain in the Greenstone Valley and we were happy to get back to the car.
A cold bottle of Wabi O Cliffhanger Kombucha seemed the perfect end to an awesome trip!

It just seems appropriate to start our new blog on the first day of the year - 1/1/13!

The plan is to use this blog for updates on what's going on at Wabi O, more in-depth reviews of the medical literature on kombucha and health, to announce specials and give-aways as well as sharing some other interesting tidbits that are important to us.
While we don't envision a strict format at this stage, we hope our posts will be of interest to you.

We encourage you to leave comments or give feedback on things you would like to read more about.

So, I'll raise my glass of Wabi O kombucha to a good start into the new year and to a long-lasting relationship with you, our readers!