Kombucha is a very mythical product, because nobody is sure about the origin of the fermented drink. The one thing that is sure is that kombucha has been around for a really long time. The art of fermentation is as old as mankind, so we will discuss some of the story’s about kombucha’s history.
The first documented findings of kombucha come from Manchuria, the area where northeast China and southeast Russia are now found. These findings originated around 221 before christ, during the times of Dzhengis Khan. The troops of the ruler spoke about kombucha as an ‘immortality tea’. Dzhengis' troops are also known for inventing barbecue, which shows that these warriors had a great influence on contemporary cultures.
Another old story about the findings of kombucha originates in Japan and Korea. Legend has it that Japanese Emperor In-giyo called on doctor Kombu to cure him of a terminal illness. The Korean doctor gave him kombucha as a medicine and In-giyo was cured against all odds. The magic drink was later called kombucha, where ‘cha’ is the Chinese translation of tea.
A more recent story goes that the Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn survived his harsh exile by drinking kombucha. An other legend about kombucha is from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, some of the survivors had something in common. They all drank kombucha regularly, which alledgedly have saved them from the radioactivity