Kombucha? WTF...?

(Kombucha drinker before and after? Source: http://www.exoduster.com/top.yushchenko.split.afp.ap.jpg)


I enjoyed Luke T. Johnson’s cover story, “Kombucha Culture, Stories of a Living Tea,” in today’s North Coast Journal.

Kombucha is a fermented tea, sometimes referred to as mushroom tea. The New-Age types claim that the tea is some sort of wonder tonic which can “cure everything from hangovers to AIDS – even flatulence and baldness,” the article states.

But there’s a downside – bacterial contamination.

Fortunately there were no restaurant advertisements on page 10 of this week’s Journal, because Luke wrote about some really disgusting side effects of the tea, like the child who had a “horrendous diaper rash” and the woman who developed “ulcers in the nose.” What the hell was she doing giving that stuff to her kid?

But it gets worse. Much worse.

Thanks to the mystical tea, a woman developed a case of “Strep-vaginitis.” “She had basically pus in her vagina,” the article stated.

Nice touch, Luke! Details, details, details.

Waves of nausea... holding stomach... not in the mood right now to read Bob Doran’s Table Talk...

On the next page a woman says “It’s a harmonizing tonic more than anything.”

Only in Humboldt County.

One fellow is quoted as saying “It’s almost like a drug. It definitely affects how you’re looking at things.”

I have some advice for him – skip the Kombucha and try a high-dose of yerba mate. Drink it the traditional way in high quantities over a long period of time. You’ll feel great.

Or drink coffee, America’s favorite anti-depressant.

As for Kombucha, I’ll pass.