One of Camp Cabarita’s first guests introduced us to kombucha in 2008, and shortly there after we were provided with our first SCOBY. Kombucha is a fermented tea and the SCOBY is the culture needed to brew kombucha. Kombucha was a beverage we were extremely interested in offering at Camp Cabarita because of it’s many health promoting benefits which include a broad probiotics profile, and rich concentration of antioxidants, enzymes and B vitamins.

Kombucha is made by adding a culture to sweetened tea, the culture metabolizes the sugar, with produces the wide array of health promoting compounds. The kombucha culture is a SCOBY which an acronym for Symbiotic Combination Of Bacteria and Yeast. We worked in our Wisconsin based food lab to perfect the process, which involves brewing tea, adding the right amount of sugar and fresh fruit juice and then waiting until the time is right for the second ferment. The second ferment begins when the kombucha is poured from a breathable brewing vessel into an air tight containers to let additional natural carbonation build up during the anaerobic digestion carried on by the yeast.

While we were working on perfecting the process, Nessalla Kombucha co-founder Alla Shapiro became a special friend of Camp Cabarita and made Kampbucha brand kombucha a reality. While “wild ferment” drinks like “roots tonic” and ginger beer have been crafted for hundreds of years, Kambucha is the first Jamaican Kombucha that we are aware of. Today Kampbucha is available to Camp Cabarita’s guests and residents of Westmoreland in several varieties including cinnamon, pimento & soursop leaf. Kampbucha is bottled in recycled Red Stripe and Rum bottled. Recently we’ve began offering Kampbucha vinegar which used for both culinary purposes & a variety skin & hair products. Visit Kambucha’s website for more pictures of the process and pictures of people enjoy this awesome drink.