Low in sugar, good for your gut and perfect with a salad or sandwich. Kombucha has become a globally popular drink for good reason. But not all kombucha is created equal. Eight years ago, when the drink was still on the fringes, one couple started fermenting it in their spare room in South London. Find out why theirs is still the only kombucha we’ll serve, as we visit Josh and Lisa Puddle, founders of MOMO, at their new brewery in Brixton.
The best ingredients come from close relationships with our producers. Relationships that go beyond buying and selling, where we get to know each other as people, solve problems together and make better food. Usually, when we catch up with them, we end up in a field or orchard, perhaps a country house. But today, we're under some railway arches in Brixton, London, surrounded by enormous, gleaming tanks, a gliding assembly line of glass bottles and a new kitchen shimmering with chestnut zellige tiles.
Our friends Josh and Lisa Puddle, founders of MOMO Kombucha, moved into their new brewery just a week or so ago. With a satisfyingly deep tang and elegant, light fizz, we believe theirs is the best kombucha out there, and the bottles have been a staple in our fridges for two years.
As members of our Craft Community – a group of growers, farmers, millers, cheesemakers and producers – the couple are close to the heart of everything we do at GAIL's, and as we grow, they grow with us. Today Josh and Lisa's kombucha is also in Ocado, Selfridges, and Whole Foods Market, and the new site could allow them to scale production by up to six times.
When they invited us round for a tour, we jumped at the chance to celebrate their new chapter and see for ourselves what sets their kombucha apart.
"That's our new teapot," says Lisa, as we begin our tour. It's like teatime for giants, as the team lift tote-sized tea bags out of the huge silver vessel. Hot water runs through an intricate system of pipes overhead and into the pot. The air carries the sweet, malted scent of tea.
The giant teapot.
The team use the same leaves – a mix of black and green selected for flavour – as the base across all five flavours (Ginger-Lemon, Elderflower, Raspberry-Hibiscus, Turmeric, plus another that changes with the seasons).
After brewing, the tea is sugared and piped into metal trays, where a starter culture is added called a SCOBY – a Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast. This is what causes fermentation, the critical process where live organisms transform the tea into something entirely different.
"The fermentation of kombucha is actually quite unique and special," says Josh. "It's called symbiotic fermentation, which means there are two types of living organism, the yeast and bacteria, which work together." In simple terms, the yeast feeds on the sugar in the tea and produces carbon dioxide and alcohol. The bacteria then feed off that alcohol to produce the organic acids, which create the tang kombucha is known for.
"You want to get to that point of vinegary tanginess, with a bit of sweetness in there, but exactly when it's ready will come down to personal preference," says Josh.
It's very much an art as well as a science. "You have to make sure the yeast and bacteria are well balanced, otherwise one of them can dominate and you don't get the end result that you're looking for," says Josh. "When you drink well-made kombucha, you get that umami, tangy flavour. There's a lot of complexity. Some people even describe it as a little bit of bite – similar to what you might experience from an alcoholic drink."
Eight years ago, all of this was happening in glass jars in Josh and Lisa's Brixton flat. The couple had got excited about kombucha during a trip to New York. "We loved the taste of it, and the fact that it is low in sugar, and wondered if there was a market for kombucha back in the UK," says Lisa.
Josh and Lisa holding the original glass jar that they began fermenting in from their home.
Local businesses liked what they were making. At the time, the couple were engaged and had a baby on the way – it felt like now or never. "Lisa just had this singular, unwavering belief that we could do it, we could build something special. If we hadn't had that, I'd probably have given up," says Josh.
We're now in their kitchen, where other members of the team are gathering for lunch. "I just thought, why not us?" says Lisa. "And I also thought, from the beginning, that if we're going to do this let's do it properly. Let's produce the best tasting, highest quality kombucha we can. Organic, raw and unfiltered, exactly as you would make it at home."
It's this insistence on quality – doing things the better way, even if it's harder – that is what we think makes MOMO so special. A lot of commercial kombuchas are pasteurised, as this makes the drink stable enough to be stored on shelves rather than the fridge. "But when you pass kombucha through that process, you kill off the beneficial bacteria, and get a much thinner flavour," says Josh. "Ours is still full of live cultures, which you can see in the haziness when you pour it, and we don't add anything lab-based back in. All the flavour comes from fermentation."
Josh and Lisa believe that scaling up will help them increase that quality further. Their kombucha is still raw, but their new equipment will help them achieve greater consistency across different batches – which the couple say is the biggest challenge they've had as a small business. "It's a living product, after all," says Josh. "This has been the first time we've put a lot of money into our brewery, which is scary. But having a relationship with a company like GAIL's has given us the confidence to make a move like this."
(Right) Elderflower, Raspberry-hibiscus and soon-to-launch Passion fruit. (Left) A giant water tank transports boiling water to the teapot via an intricate network of pipes.
Josh compares kombucha to other fermented drinks. "Really good beer or wine stops you in your tracks and gets you thinking about where it's from and how it's made," he says. "I'd like people to have the same reaction when they drink our kombucha."
Words by Kate Hollowood
Images by Brennan Bucannan