A mysterious drink called kombucha has infiltrated supermarkets nationwide. Available in flavors that range from sweet grape to earthy red tea with peach, its labels promise a stunning array of health benefits, including improved digestion, a happier outlook on life and healthier hair, and stop a millimeter short of claiming it fights cancer. Low in sugar and calories and high in new-age hype, kombucha (pronounced kom-BOO-cha) is the latest health-food craze to cross over from bohemian kitchens to the brightly lit shelves of mainstream grocers.

Bill Wade, Post-Gazette Deborah A. Uttenreither, a holistic health counselor, and jars she uses to make kombucha. A temperatue control jar is at left. Click photo for larger image. Kombucha by any other name is still fermented There are almost as many names for kombucha as there are Indo-European languages. Divine tea, Manchurian Mushroom, teakvass, pinchia fermentans, and Volga jellyfish are a few and reflect the drink's reach around the globe. The etymology of kombucha, like its earliest origins, is a mystery. There are two popular theories, both tracing the name to Japan. Some say kombucha is a Western adaptation of a Japanese term for a totally unrelated drink -- a broth or tea, cha, made of kelp, kombu. Others say a Korean doctor named Kombu treated the Japanese Emporer Inyko in 415 A.D. with the fermented tea, which was then referred to as the tea of Kombu. -- Siobhan Roth

At about three dollars a bottle, kombucha's promises don't come cheap, but it's selling like crazy.

The Pittsburgh Whole Foods store started stocking the exotic beverage two summers ago. Teresa Furrer, associate store team leader, says that demand has now climbed so high, "we've had a hard time keeping it in stock." The favorite varieties are raspberry and mango.

I first encountered kombucha about two summers ago in a North Carolina health-food store. One of the employees was guzzling a bottle of the stuff and, when she came up for air, declared she couldn't go a day without it. I declined the swig she offered but later bought my own bottle. Since then, I, too, have developed a minor addiction to kombucha's cidery flavor and Zotz-like fizz. And though I may have fallen prey to the labels, I swear it gently boosts my energy and lightens my mood. It also curbs my appetite (but so, truth be told, does Coke Zero).

So, what really is kombucha, this apparent elixir of life? Is it a "sparkling Himalayan tonic" or a "handmade Chinese tea," as the labels on the two major brands proclaim?

Both and neither.

Kombucha, often called mushroom tea, is a fermented beverage made from black or green tea and a fungus culture.

According to legend, people in Eastern Europe and Asia have been brewing it in their homes for thousands of years as a health tonic. And until three or four years ago, the most common way to procure a glass of kombucha was to brew it yourself, starting with a kombucha culture, not unlike the cultures that activate yogurt, transform cabbage into sauerkraut and leaven sourdough bread.

Kombucha culture looks like a hideous, gelatinous pancake, but placed in a vessel of sweetened tea and left to ferment for a week or so, it converts humble tea into a crisp drink with a pale amber hue and pinpoint bubbles. And because the fermentation converts most of the sugar into organic acids, the resulting drink has as few as two grams of sugar per cup.

A mature kombucha culture also reproduces itself every few feeding cycles, producing a "baby," a slippery little pancake that grows above the mother culture; home brewers quickly develop an endless supply of kombucha babies. Google "kombucha babies" to discover hundreds of devotees eager to give (or sell) you one.

	Make your own You can learn to make your own kombucha at a free workshop at 7 p.m. Monday at the East End Food Co-op in Point Breeze. Part of the Co-op's Lecture Series, the workshop is led by Deborah Uttenreither, a holistic health counselor and director of Life Fuel, her whole food nutrition and health practice. Ms. Uttenreither, of Brentwood, says she recommends kombucha to many of her clients for ailments and general health and has been drinking it regularly herself for about a year. She says, "I could just go on about what I think is good about it," including the taste. Many commercial brands are available -- the Co-op carries Millennium Products GT's Organic Raw Kombucha and Synergy drinks and Kombucha Wonder Drink -- but Ms. Uttenreither says people like to make their own for the same reasons they make their own bread and yogurt and grow their own vegetables: "It is healthy and cost effective." And you can customize it. A student at the Integrative Institute for Nutrition in New York, she will touch on kombucha's history and health benefits, which she describes for herself as "a shot of energy and a shot of clarity." Participants will get to sample some kombucha, too. This hourlong talk is one in a free series of health and educational lectures held at the Co-op. Register by calling 412-242-3598. For more information and directions, visit www.eastendfood.coop. -- Bob Batz Jr.

Kombucha's self-propagation helped spread the brewing tradition over thousands of miles and hundreds of generations. Indeed, gifts of ancient-lineage kombucha cultures generated the first major bottling efforts. The kombucha you slurp today may have ancestors that were sipped by Huns.

Commercial pioneers

Stephen Lee, a founder of Tazo Teas, first encountered kombucha during a 1994 business trip in St. Petersburg, Russia. At a tea distributor's family home for dinner, "I saw this gallon jug next to the mother's bed, and I asked about it," Mr. Lee says. "When she told me, 'I got my original culture from my great aunt in Siberia in 1939,' shivers went down my spine."

Mr. Lee brought a piece of that Siberian culture back home with him to Oregon, where he brewed it in his kitchen for about a year. "At one point, I decided it would be a great commercial beverage." In 2002, after developing a process for producing and pasteurizing the "tea" for wide distribution, he launched Kombucha Wonder Drink.

Around the same time that Mr. Lee was working on his product, a teenager named G.T. Dave made his first kombucha sale, delivering to a Los Angeles health-food store, via his mother's Land Cruiser, a 12-bottle batch he had brewed in his parents' kitchen.

The Dave family had long been brewing and drinking kombucha, after receiving a culture from friends. Laraine Dave, G.T.'s mother, credited their home-brew for possibly slowing the spread of an aggressive form of breast cancer before her diagnosis, and for keeping up her strength and spirit during chemotherapy. Mr. Dave wanted to spread the drink's benefits by sharing kombucha cultures. "But nine out of 10 people came back and said, 'My kombucha came out weird,'" he recalls. So Dave decided to bottle raw kombucha and bring it to the world. A few years later, he won his first Whole Foods account.

From those cozy roots, Kombucha Wonder Drink and GT's Organic Raw Kombucha and Synergy, the GT's line of kombucha-fruit blends, took off faster than Gatorade. They can be found in every state, and the two companies compete fiercely. The New Age beverage industry may never be the same.

The raw and the cooked

Kombucha Wonder Drink is pasteurized, while home-brews and GT's are raw. And that can make all the difference.

When you drink raw kombucha, you consume millions, perhaps billions of microorganisms similar to those in yogurt. These bugs, called probiotics, help maintain a healthy bacterial environment in the gut, which is why doctors often advise patients on antibiotics to eat yogurt. Pasteurization wipes out the probiotics. On the other hand, it also wipes out any bad bugs that might be present.

Mr. Dave dismisses concerns about his raw products. "Kombucha, when it's done correctly, has a very high resilience against contaminants," he says, adding that the fermentation produces a high concentration of lactic acid, which acts as a preservative. "E-coli and salmonella cannot exist in kombucha because it's so acidic."

So far, no serious ill effects from commercially bottled raw kombucha have been reported. And the Food and Drug Administration has found "no evidence of contamination in kombucha products fermented under sterile conditions." Home brewing causes a bit more concern. Stories of toxic Aspergillus molds growing on kombucha culture abound. If you home-brew and your mushroom shows signs of mold, throw out the whole culture and all the liquid.

Madelyn Fernstrom, director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Weight Management Center and associate director of the UPMC Center for Nutrition, warns against drinking raw kombucha, especially the home brews. "They're a recipe for disaster," she says. "You're putting tea, and sugar, and this culture in a big jar and letting it ferment in your kitchen."

She also points out that none of the health claims about kombucha has been proven in clinical trials or evaluated by the FDA. "You can say whatever you want about a food. It doesn't have to be substantiated," she says. "If you're going to try it, drink the pasteurized."

I didn't mention to Dr. Fernstrom that I drink both the raw and pasteurized, but I did confess by e-mail to my cousin, an epidemiologist in Boston. She wrote back within a minute: "Pasteurization is your friend!" Let's hope I can have raw friends, too. I may invest in a home-brew kit.

Kombucha Wonder Drink's Stephen Lee insists on pasteurization for commercial bottling. "To make large quantities of raw kombucha isn't safe," he says. Besides the potential for contamination, the alcohol content in raw kombucha -- trace when first brewed -- can increase after bottling. "Sometimes it gets to two percent, and there's a chance of it going over five percent," he says. (Maybe that's why people find it so addictive!)

Anyway, Lee points out, most of the brew's functional ingredients survive high-heat purification. "The real values are in the organic acids."

Both raw and cooked kombucha are rich in lactic and gluconic acids, and often, glucoronic acid. Lactic acid plays a vital role in digestion; gluconic acid may ease yeast infections and glucoronic acid may help detoxify the liver. Thanks to the tea, kombucha also contains the amino acid L-theanine -- thought to calm your mood and strengthen immunity -- as well as an armload of antioxidants.

One might be tempted to guzzle away like the gal at the North Carolina store. Don't.

Even staunch supporters of the raw stuff recommend taking it easy, especially on a first try.

"It's not great to drink a lot of it," says Kathy O'Brien of the Weston A. Price Foundation, which advocates a natural, traditional, omnivorous diet, including small amounts of fermented drinks. Consuming too much can cause heartburn or even a laxative effect. She suggests a four-ounce serving a day.

On the other end of the serving-size-spectrum, G.T. Dave, who concurs that newbies start with four ounces, consumes a good gallon and a half a day.

While reporting this story, I found my own daily maximum: 16 ounces, regardless of pasteurization. Ms. O'Brien knows of what she speaks.

As for health benefits, I can attest that it definitely eases hangovers, but all you can say for sure is that kombucha is a possibly healthful drink that tastes good. More than broccoli in a bottle, perhaps, but far less than a cure-all.

Is kombucha the next yogurt?

Meanwhile, the kombucha market is poised to explode like a shaken bottle of GT's.

Several Web sites now offer their own bottled kombucha for sale, bartenders are pouring kombucha martinis, and Walking Man Brewery of Stevenson, Wash., won a gold medal at the 2006 World Beer Cup for its Blootsvoetse Bruin, a kombucha-enhanced sour brown ale. Suddenly, kombucha seems to be everywhere.

A decade ago, the kombucha market "was at zero," says Stephen Lee. "Now I'm guessing it's $25 or $30 million."

He estimates annual sales of the drink may soon hit the $100 million mark. "It's the fastest growing segment in the beverage industry."

According to the Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, few in the U.S. had tasted, let alone heard of yogurt until the 1960s. Today, it's the darling of the dairy industry, accounting in 2006 for almost $3 billion dollars in sales, not including Wal-Mart.

Might kombucha be the next yogurt? Well, probably not.

The raw version's cloudy appearance and the pungent aroma of both raw and pasteurized -- old sweat socks with a lemon twist comes to mind -- tend to scare people away. "Some customers returned their bottles, thinking it was bad," says Ms. Furrer of Whole Foods. I can relate; my husband, who usually submits to my health-food proselytizing, won't go near the stuff.

There is, however, a fighting chance that kombucha may secure a safe spot on the brightly lit shelves of mainstream grocery stores: Dietrich Mateschitz, the man who brought us Red Bull, is about to launch a trio of wellness drinks, including, you guessed it, kombucha.