A New Hip Thing Is Brewing In Goa!

After taking the world by storm as a health food craze, kombucha has gradually become a routine part of many people’s diets in Goa. Fans of this fermented and sweetened tea, that tastes somewhere between vinegar and champagne, frequently say it can provide a wide range of health benefits. While there is not much evidence for most of these claims, the popularity of the drink, nonetheless, is on a steady rise. From grocery stores to restaurants, cafés and hotel properties, everyone seems to be trying to cash in on this new ‘hip’ trend in the state. Planet Goa takes a sip and tells you why you should drink it, how you should drink it and where.

- Kishore Amati

Rohini Rane couldn’t contain her disbelief, her brow furrowed and she did a double take. A marathon runner and supremely health conscious Rane, after finding herself in Goa for a vacation, stopped for a refreshing beverage after a tiring day riding in the sun. Rane says, “I was shocked. There it was on the shelf, an entire row of kombucha options. How did this drink get so widely accepted that a random café in North Goa is selling it alongside beer and coffee?”

While kombucha used to be largely relegated to health food stores, to say that it has made a big splash in the world of beverages would be an understatement. The drink can now be found on the shelves of grocery stores, cafés and even convenience stores across Goa. Heck, there’s even a ‘Coffee and Kombucha Bar’ in Anjuna, run by model/actress Tara D’Souza and her business partner Neville Shroff, dedicated to the ardent lovers of this healthy elixir.

Kombucha is generally produced from a mixture of sugar, brewed tea (typically black) and a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, or scoby. Some kombucha drinks also have fruit juice added to them. It has an ancient history - it is believed that kombucha originated in China, where it has been consumed for around 2000 years. But it was Kombucha’s popularity mainly in the US, mainly (where it’s a multi-million dollar industry now) that propagated its reach across the world. It marked its arrival in Goa a few years ago but the ‘fizz’ around it is only increasing.