Why Do You Use Green Tea?
Isn’t Kombucha Usually Made With Black Tea?
Kombucha is more frequently made with black tea. This may be because black tea was more common in Russia which had a major influence on kombucha’s development. However, I suspect it is because green tea kombucha is more challenging to make.
We use green tea because we were highly influenced by our initial research into kombucha, in 1993, when our founder Chris read Günther Frank’s highly regarded book, Kombucha: Healthy Beverage and Natural Remedy from the Far East. He strongly recommends using green tea instead of the more traditional black. He cites many reasons, which we summarize nowadays by saying that “green tea has more antioxidants and polyphenols, particularly ECGC, than black tea.” Since our primary impetus for starting to make and drink kombucha was to test its health benefits, we chose green tea.
We have since learned that our initial choice, made for health reasons, has another outcome we regard as a real plus. The flavor of our green tea kombucha has always been less vinegary, which we and many others prefer. Because it is less sour, there has been no temptation to add sugar or any other flavoring as cover-ups.