WORDS: EDITORIAL TEAM IMAGES: SUPPLIED
Mark Jones and Manon Colmant, founders of local kombucha brand Happy Culture, are proof that living your brand ethos is good for business.
Q: First things first: What exactly is kombucha?
A: Kombucha is a fizzy probiotic tea, crafted using an ancient Eastern tradition. A sweet tea undergoes a unique fermentation process combined with a healthy culture of bacteria and yeasts (known as a scoby). The result is a naturally fizzy living drink.
Q: Why should everyone be drinking it?
A: Beneficial properties include gut-loving probiotics, organic acids, antioxidants, vitamins and digestive enzymes, which together work to improve digestion and gut flora, boost immunity and vitality, and balance and detoxify the body.
Q: Describe the Happy Culture taste.
A: In a nutshell our kombucha is somewhere between iced tea and sparkling wine: a little yeasty, a little tangy, a little sweet.
Q: Explain the fermentation method.
A: There are two fermentations that take place in the production of kombucha. The first is in an open vessel, where the mother culture (scoby) will transform the sweet tea into kombucha by converting the sugars into organic acids, digestive enzymes, vitamins and micronutrients – this process takes about three weeks. The second fermentation is a few days in the bottle – this is when the bubbles are created by the yeasts. Once the effervescence level is where we want it to be, we put the bottles in refrigeration and keep them cold until consumption to avoid further fermentation.
Q: Your PET bottles are 100% recyclable. Minimising the consumer’s environmental footprint is clearly important to you?
A: Our bottles are designed with the circular economy in mind and are compatible with the recycling infrastructure in South Africa. This allows the bottles to be transformed into a variety of goods, such as clothes, pillows and reusable shopping bags. Our aim is to ensure that the bottles don’t end up in landfills or in the ocean but continue to live on through the recycling chain.
We are strong believers that a healthy body is a key ingredient for optimal happiness
