Kombucha Ban

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TxBrew

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I get cases at cost of Kombucha from my friend who owns a store and he told me they can't buy it anymore, across the board from local to GT's. The Feds have cracked down and he couldn't buy any of them right now.

Unbelievable. :mad:
 
It's the Evil Voodoo Magic they put in it.

Naw, it's because it contains traces of alcohol, though I can't imagine people would get drunk off of it. It's just some government bs.

You can always make it yourself, probably would be cheaper.
 
the big stink came down cuz some place stored some out of the fridge and the alcohol percentage went up more than what was stated on the bottle. that was the big brewhaha. It happened in Baltimore. I just hope that they don't put it on an age restricted list like alcohol, then my health food store wouldn't be able to sell it!
 
As long as it is under 0.5%, fine. The manufacturer has to be able to demonstrate that. About 30 years ago, a 'candy' called Rum Dumbs was removed from the market because they were almost 5% ABW. My mom made something similar called rum balls, but with a rum flavoring as dad was a teetotaler.
 
Oh my god, you're not going to believe it....It's all that **** Lindsey Lohan's fault.

http://news.santacruz.com/2010/06/29/a_lohan_ban

A Lohan Ban?

lohankombucha_web.jpg


A Google search for the words “Lindsay Lohan kombucha” brings up a glut of articles and blog posts from news sites like HuffingtonPost, TMZ and New York Daily News with titles like “Did Kombucha Tea Set Off Lindsay Lohan’s SCRAM?” and “Lindsay Lohan boozing it up with Kombucha tea?!” The articles point to a June 6 incident when the actress’s legally ordered alcohol monitoring anklet, or “SCRAM” device, which monitors alcohol consumption through sweat, went off during an after-party for the MTV Movie Awards, automatically triggering a warrant for her arrest. Lohan, who is on probation for a 2007 DUI conviction and barred from booze, vehemently denied drinking alcohol but can quite regularly be found clutching a bottle of kombucha. Though she never blamed the tea specifically for the ankle device’s reading and was later cleared by a judge, the timing of the violation and the FDA’s interest in kombucha’s alcohol content was too much for the scandal-starved blogosphere to let slip by. For a time even the break room at the downtown Santa Cruz New Leaf sported a photo of the troubled actress with the words “kombucha killer” scrawled across it. Lohan’s manager Jason Weinberg did not return calls seeking comment, but New Leaf manager Amber Willis was happy to weigh in.

“It’s a pretty crazy story,” she says, fighting off giggles. “I’m really not sure if it’s true, but you can see where it would come from.”

Whether the Parent Trap actress-turned-cocaine connoisseur-and-spray-tan-saleswoman played any part in the government’s decision to investigate kombucha, the FDA wouldn’t say. And while kombucha makers like GT Dave of the uber-popular GT brand says he hopes to have products back on shelves in “a matter of weeks,” other more dire prognoses are offered by consumers.

“The companies need to hurry up and get this thing sorted out,” says Jeremy Blevin, a shopper at Staff of Life who’s come to pick through the remains of the kombucha stash. “Because if the government actually makes a recall, who knows when we’ll see it again.”

That is what put the abv of kombucha on the fda's radar.
 
Yea I read that but then the CEO of GT's said it was just a rumor.

Might be a good thing as it will force me into Kombucha brewing. I love the stuff, helps my stomach problems a lot.
 
I noticed about 2 weeks ago when the pulled them off the shelves at whole foods. I was like wtf and thought perhaps they were out of stock. This was a week after I decided to buy a bottle of raw kombucha and get a culture started. Luckily I did, because that was my only source of kombucha. Anyhow I looked it up and it seems that whole foods didn't want to be liable. Here is the blog post that I saw.
 
oh, well. scobies will stay legal. :) Hey Tx. pm me if you want and i'll ship you one of mine
 
Interesting. Brew Dr. Kombucha here in Portland is a vendor at the farmers market I sell at and they were there the last 4 weeks. This week finally with their taps flowing. Is it just retailers that are taking the stance? Producers can still sell direct? Or....?
 
My wife and I have been drinking lots of kombucha lately, and this ban is doing nothing but making us want to start brewing our own even sooner than we had planned. Once we get a 1-2 gallon vessel and a scoby, we're going for it.

TxBrew - not sure how often you get up to Austin, but I think you can still get Buddha's Brew (local brand) at some of the local farmer's markets. It's a bit more filtered than GT's but they have some good flavors and they give a discount for refilling your old bottles.
 
Yea I used to buy cases of Buddha's Brew, my friend runs Live Oak on Manchaca and he said they can't get Buddha's Brew right now.
 
My wife and I have been drinking lots of kombucha lately, and this ban is doing nothing but making us want to start brewing our own even sooner than we had planned. Once we get a 1-2 gallon vessel and a scoby, we're going for it.

TxBrew - not sure how often you get up to Austin, but I think you can still get Buddha's Brew (local brand) at some of the local farmer's markets. It's a bit more filtered than GT's but they have some good flavors and they give a discount for refilling your old bottles.

Brew your self a cup of nice green or black tea or mix of both( my favorite was the mix of green and black about two to one ratio) and add about 2 heaping teaspoons sugar while it is hot and let it cool and add about 1/2 cup to one cup of your kombucha that you buy to it, all kombucha should be live or you wouldn't get the good stuff from it. put it all in a mason jar and put a paper towel or tea towel over it with a rubber band to keep out the bugs and dust and within a week or so you should see a new baby scoby growing, once it gets a bit thicker you can start adding more fresh tea/sugar and soon you will have your own big mother and can make as much as you like!:)
I've done this with the GTdave's and it turned out really well both times, and since I used the raspberry flavor the first little baby scoby was pink!
 
Brew your self a cup of nice green or black tea or mix of both( my favorite was the mix of green and black about two to one ratio) and add about 2 heaping teaspoons sugar while it is hot and let it cool and add about 1/2 cup to one cup of your kombucha that you buy to it, all kombucha should be live or you wouldn't get the good stuff from it. put it all in a mason jar and put a paper towel or tea towel over it with a rubber band to keep out the bugs and dust and within a week or so you should see a new baby scoby growing, once it gets a bit thicker you can start adding more fresh tea/sugar and soon you will have your own big mother and can make as much as you like!:)
I've done this with the GTdave's and it turned out really well both times, and since I used the raspberry flavor the first little baby scoby was pink!

I did this recently (a few weeks before the ban) and it works great. The tea mix that I use is about 2 parts black tea to 1 part yerba mate. sometimes I throw some roobos in there too. For sugar I use a mix of unrefined cane sugars. Azucar Morena, Demurura, and Rapidura, depending on what I've got on hand.
 
I dumped a whole bottle of GT into a batch of tea and nothing... :(
Tea was cooled to room temp - it's been two weeks.
The tea still smells awesome, nothing bad happening in there but nothing good either.
 
I dumped a whole bottle of GT into a batch of tea and nothing... :(
Tea was cooled to room temp - it's been two weeks.
The tea still smells awesome, nothing bad happening in there but nothing good either.

How much tea did you use? If you used a full batch of tea and only put one bottle in it will take much longer to work than just using the one cup of tea/sugar and half the bottle of GT It might still work, but it is just taking it sweet ol' time.
 
No hurry; I'd be happy to wait. I wasn't expecting it to be done yet, but visible action would be good. I probably have a 7 to 1 ratio of tea to kombucha, thought the whole bottle would be able to take care of it.

Thanks.
 
the big stink came down cuz some place stored some out of the fridge and the alcohol percentage went up more than what was stated on the bottle.

They'd better hurry up and take a lot of fruit juice off the shelves then too!
 
Whole Foods pulled unpasteurized kombucha off their shelves on their own. The feds didn't say anything; kombucha is still off their radar, it was WF's lawyers. The problem is not the 1/2% alcohol (fresh-squeezed orange juice has about the same amount) the problem is, unless you pasteurize it, the alcohol level can fluctuate as much a 1% or more, and then the laws get sticky. I can still get G.T.'s at my local organic food store. At $3.40 for 16 ounces, I still make my own at home.
 
It is because of the potential alcohol content, now an ABC issue. BUT, you can buy the kombucha concentrates, add water and you are good to go; or so I have read.
 

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