Lao Kombucha

I’m pretty sure this is the only Lao flavour that, until now, I hadn’t tried. I’ve always skipped it over because I find the blue colour kind of gimmicky.

The taste really surprised me, but not necessarily in a good way? It doesn’t taste like matcha in the slightest which is a disappointment. Reading the bottle it’s supposed to have notes of strawberry and rhubarb pie and I can see – the strawberry in particular. However instead of a fresh juicy strawberry note with natural sweetness or even a more tart strawberry I found this had that somewhat unpleasant taste of a slightly sour and over ripe strawberry. The kind you bite into that’s a little too soft and mushy and maybe even starting to ferment, but not really rotten yet.

Also, near the end of the bottle, I started getting this weird creamy finish that mixed with the kombucha vinegar taste was giving a sour yogurt note – and not in a fun way.

I don’t know – I just felt like this was a weaker and weirdly funky (even for kombucha) offering from Lao. That said, I bet it’s still a best seller for them. People are really, really weird about blue drinks. Like, they just get SO excited even if the taste is kinda just meh.

Kind of hate the name of this kombucha because it’s not iced in any way, it’s just good black tea. Specifically, it’s the Niligiri Conoor from Camellia Sinensis which turns out to work splendidly as the base for kombucha. It’s got that tangy kombucha vinegar kick but it’s almost sort of citrusy and it works so nicely with the smooth, bold flavours of malt and honey that come through.

Crystal, the straight white tea kombucha Lao carries, is my favourite but there’s just something kind of perfect and magical about this one too. Simple but fantastically high quality. Fun flavours additions are fun, but keeping things classic can pay off in a big way too.

I’ve wanted to try this flavour from Lao for a while, so I was excited to see it now offered at my local grocery store. I do love blueberry teas so that was a big part of why it interested me, but the biggest part is the fact it’s made using one of Camellia Sinensis’ shou pu’erhs as the base. Honestly, it’s incredible. For a kombucha it’s really smooth with that kind o heavy, “bass-y” earthiness that creates this super grounded, easy drinking foundation for such a fresh, realistic blueberry note. For a kombucha, the tartness/acidity is very minimal (not non-present, though) and it’s just so rich, lush and chuggable. Like, for a kombucha to have notes of petrichor is kind of mind blowing to me.

I don’t think it beats out Lao’s white tea kombucha that they make, but it’s close!

We spent the morning on one of the days this past week at Atwater Market where I picked up a couple different grocery items for myself (mostly hot sauce), but also snagged a refreshing cold kombucha to drink while we shopped too. I had never seen this flavour of Lao Kombucha before so I couldn’t resist! I don’t usually love mint flavoured kombucha but I thought this one was nice and refreshing with some really herbaceous tones to it. I think the main reason it worked for me though was that the kombucha vinegar blended really well with the acidity and tartness of the lime and lemon, and that made the fact this was minty and cooling less weird alongside that “tang” than it would have otherwise. For once my brain processed the combination as complimentary instead of cacophonous because I was associating it with something that is meant to have both mint and acidity! Brilliant!

Someone recently gifted me one of every kombucha flavour in Lao’s assortment, so I’ll probably be slowing drinking through those over the next week or so.

This is one that I think of as kind of “middle of the pack” in terms of their offerings. It’s fruity, fresh, and floral with a really approachable elderberry note but part of me wants it to lean a little more heavily into either the sweetness, tart tangyness or floral notes. As is, I find it a little too middling and in that regard just a bit forgettable compared to some of the flavours Lao has that are just SO strong and memorable.

Seems like, in the past, I wasn’t huge on this flavour. However, my local grocery store just started stocking Lao Kombucha so I bought a bunch of them to revisit or try again and this time around I thought this was very enjoyable. You can’t taste the green tea they’re using as the base but the somewhat “plumply juice” and floral tasting elderberry note was really nice and had just enough of the sour kombucha vinegar to bring out its bright, sweet top notes without destroying the balance of the floral undertones.

Maybe it’s because, since the two years when I first tried this, I’ve become a lot more familiar with the taste of elderberry?

Another kombucha that I snagged from a cafe/market on one of the days were were out and about. I didn’t love this one so much; it’s pretty floral and distinctly elderflower tasting but also lacked clarity to the overall profile despite that one note coming through well and was this weird mix of floral, sweet, and tangy that seemed more competitive than cohesive. Like, it was fine and drinkable but paled in comparison to the “Crystal” from the same company.

Snagged from a cafe around Old Port on the afternoon we were walking around there. I just needed quick hydration, and kombucha seemed like a good fix. I love the new branding that Lao is using – it’s super sleek and modern. The kombucha is as good, if not better, than I remember it. It’s so impressive to me how well they’ve captured the light and refreshing distinct taste of the Nan Mei wild white tea. It’s a little honeydew or citrus tasting but also has the delicate notes of rosemary/pine I get from that tea too.

Sipdown (720)!

Had a very early morning meeting earlier this week, so I was up and out of the house much quicker than is usual for me – I actually got to watch the sunrise as I was walking to the metro! I usually don’t eat anything in the mornings, and that day was no exception – but I was exhausted so I grabbed one of the many different kombuches in my fridge to drink on the metro for a bit of early morning caffeine.

This was a nice selection because it’s so light and refreshing for a kombucha – good for an empty stomach first thing in the morning! It’s a little citrus-y, but mostly just has a nice general white tea flavour with a very crisp finish. It’s a little sweet, but not sugary. Really excellent, and I’m happy that I picked up a bottle during the Tea Festival to have later because sipping on this while walking to the metro and watching the sunrise was just…

A moment!

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/B4CsjQsAqpA/

Montreal Tea Festival – Tea #17

This was my absolute favourite kombucha in the whole festival – it was just incredible. It’s from a company that makes all of their kombuchas using tea from Camellia Sinensis Tea House, and you can really tell the amount of effort than they put in to making sure that the quality of the tea they’re using comes through.

I don’t know how they do it, but this kombucha manages to feel incredibly light and soft/refreshing with notes of the white tea actually being decipherable. Soft whisps of lemon and perfectly ripe green melon, with honeysuckle and fresh timothy hay. It’s so unlike any other kombucha I’ve had before – and I really, really wasn’t going to pick up any kombucha from the festival because I didn’t want to carry around the glass bottles in my backpack but I ended up making a mad dash for the stand right on my way out and snagging a single bottle, which I carried home on the metro in my hand. It’s in my fridge now, and I’m saving it for a special moment…

More booch.

This company is interesting to me in particular because unlike a lot of Kombucha companies they’re really transparent about where the tea comes from that’s used in their Kombucha and I have a familiarity with that source! In this case, they’re using tea from Camellia Sinensis! This flavour of kombucha is actually made from a pu’erh they carry that I already own, and love!

The flavour pairings make sense to me; I think “forest berries” make a whole lot of sense mixed with earthy, sweet pu’erh and I’ve also seen and enjoyed a lot of mint and pu’erh mixes. I wonder if the wintergreen they use is also from Camellia Sinensis since that’s something they also carry? Unfortunately, I think this is one of those cases where it becomes wildly clear just how transformative the process of making kombucha is on the tea it’s done with since, even though I love the base tea on its own, I’m not loving the flavour of this kombucha so much…

It’s not vile or anything – in fact I think the blueberry is quite a lovely profile and it’s got just the right amount of tangyness/acidity. However, the wintergreen feels wrong in kombucha format – which is actually a little weird for me to say since I’m almost POSITIVE that I’ve had wintergreen in kombucha that was meant to replicate the taste of rootbeer!? That’s a very different sort of flavour profile, though…

I think it’s the acidity/tangyness of the berry and the wintergreen; it’s just not clicking for me and there were even a few sips where the wintergreen was so strong alongside the berry that I couldn’t help but think of mouthwash. Which is not the ideal flavour for me.