Article by Gede Wirayuda
How has Kommunity Brew remained authentic after more than 10 years? We talk a lot about authentic kombucha at Kommunity Brew. It’s a term commonly used by independent producers and home brewers—but what does it actually mean?
For us, authentic kombucha has one defining characteristic: it is fermented using a living culture that isn’t intentionally removed or deactivated before the drink reaches you. After all, isn’t that part of what makes kombucha, kombucha?
Over more than ten years, we’ve moved from a backyard brewery into a factory, reached more stores across Australia and expanded our product range. Plenty has changed, but our commitment to traditionally fermented kombucha hasn’t.
These are the three pillars behind the way we brew our kombucha and package it live and raw.
Low Sugar, but Not No Sugar
“No sugar” sounds good, right? Sugar is something we’re frequently told to avoid, and zero-sugar drinks have become increasingly popular. With traditionally fermented kombucha, however, a small amount of sugar is part of the process.
Sugar provides the fuel for fermentation. We add cooled sweet tea to our SCOBY—a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. Over several weeks, the culture consumes much of the sugar, producing organic acids, carbon dioxide and other compounds that give kombucha its familiar tangy character (Villarreal-Soto et al., 2018).
A small amount of residual sugar remains to balance the flavour and support the living culture.
Minimal Filtration, Maximum Character
How finely a kombucha is filtered matters. In our view, filtering out the cultures responsible for fermentation defeats the purpose of making authentic kombucha.
Research has shown that microfiltration can substantially reduce microorganisms in kombucha (Daneluz et al., 2023). We filter our kombucha to remove larger solid material without using fine filtration designed to strip the remaining microorganisms from the drink.
As a result of our lighter filtration, you may notice some natural sediment in your bottle. It’s a normal feature of a fermented drink that hasn’t been heavily filtered.
No Pasteurisation, Preservatives or Antimicrobial Processing Aids
We don’t use preservatives, pasteurisation or antimicrobial processing aids to deactivate the cultures in our kombucha.
These methods can make a beverage more stable or extend its shelf life, but they aren’t how we choose to make Kommunity Brew. Preservatives generally need to appear on an ingredient list, while processing aids and pasteurisation may not need to be declared. This means two kombuchas can appear similar on the shelf while being produced in very different ways.
Keeping our kombucha live and raw means it needs to remain refrigerated and be treated with care. For us, that is a worthwhile part of making the product properly.
More than ten years after we began brewing in a Perth backyard, plenty has changed—but our commitment to authentic kombucha hasn’t.
Cheers!
References
Villarreal-Soto, S. A., Beaufort, S., Bouajila, J., Souchard, J.-P. and Taillandier, P. 2018. “Understanding Kombucha Tea Fermentation: A Review.” Journal of Food Science 83 (3): 580–588. https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.14068.
Daneluz, J., Turossi, T. C., Santos, V., Baldasso, C. and Daneluz, A. C. 2023. “Membrane Separation Process of Microfiltration Applied to the Filtration of Kombuchas.” Food Chemistry Advances 3: 100451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.focha.2023.100451.