Love Potions and Kombucha
It’s mid-January and I’m on one of my many trips to the bodega near my apartment. The staff is familiar with me — they’ve seen me enter and silently make my way to the very back corner of the store where they keep their selection of kombucha and other probiotic beverages. I used to feel their eyes on me, watching to be sure I wasn’t just using it as a cover to get to the most hidden corner of the store and steal. I mean, nobody likes kombucha that much, right? Well, I do. And by this point, I can tell that they’ve released me of any suspicions of thievery. After all, that wouldn’t be in line with the kombucha lifestyle.
As a native Californian, I consider myself a victim of the holistic living/toxic positivity trend that has made industries out of nonsensical strings of words: hot yoga, manifestation journals, and of course, fermented sodas. These industries are growing through their promises of health, despite the fact that kombucha teas have been disavowed by the Mayo Clinic. Apparently their claims of health haven’t been tested and no respected academic institution wants to waste money on a peer reviewed study of a drink beloved by people who wouldn’t read a W-2, much less a scientific journal. As someone who can name more yoga poses than years I have done my taxes, I feel an obligation, a magnetism even, to the fridge I’m standing before now.
A drink I haven’t seen before by a brand I am a loyal follower of, GT’s Living Foods (more specifically their Synergy line), catches my eye. The wrapper has an alluring dusty pink sheen with a mandala of more pinks that takes up most of the front-facing space. It’s a more expansive and inviting graphic than I’ve seen on any other food label because of the way that the petals of the mandala seem to be sucking me in and enveloping me. But it could just be due to the fact that I’m looking at the words “PURE LOVE” in all capital letters in the direct center of it. That’s the name of the drink: Synergy Pure Love Kombucha. Now I stand entranced in it’s hypnotic graphic, needing to know more.
It’s a winter drink, more specifically a Valentine’s Day concoction. GT’s Living Foods often employs the tactic of rolling out a limited edition drink to drum up interest during the holidays. Each drink is labeled with a word that’s meant to invoke both a vague positive ideology and the spirit of the chosen holiday. For Thanksgiving, it was “Gratitude,” boasting a mix of apples, oranges, ginger, turmeric, cardamom, and black pepper. Beyond the name, the eclectic mix of aromatics and harvest fruits also fit the holiday for it’s taste reminiscent of a lovely turkey brine.
From a design standpoint, it could very well be an actual love potion. I would say that it looks like a conventional kombucha bottle to give a sense of its shape, but each brand has created its own odd variation of a glass bottle that looked like it began the same way: a product designer approaching a glassblower and saying “make a bottle, but make it wrong.”
The holistic feel of the bottle ends at the neck up, with a clinically white cap ringed around the side with vertical ridges, as if off of a prescription pill bottle. It’s a reminder that there are billions of bacteria inside this bottle that are ready to clean my gut out in this marriage of the spiritual and the scientific. I grab two bottles. If I run into a handsome stranger on my walk home, I could offer him one and see if this drink that boasts “Pure Love” can make good on it’s promise.
It lists just three ingredients on the front: blood orange, hibiscus, and rose. I check the fine print of the ingredients on the back of the bottle in case more additives were hiding. It’s located right next to a quote: “Living Food for the Living Body.” This vague mantra could actually be used to describe most foods, the marketing team just needed to get to it first to make their fermented vinegar drink more appealing. Surprisingly, there was only one more ingredient: the kombucha tea itself. I expected the ingredients to be combined before the fermentation process instead of trying to layer it atop the blood orange juice and extracts of hibiscus and rose. It’s ironic that this alchemic-seeming drink actually has about as much craftsmanship as a high schooler mixing a beverage with a name along the lines of “dumpster drink.”
And that’s how it tasted: layered in. The kombucha tea is heavily carbonated and sour. And though it has a nice balance against the milder fruit flavors it’s mixed with, it requires concentration to taste anything else because it overpowers everything else, no matter how hard I try to mix it. It’s a difficult task due to the fact that there is a “Do Not Shake” warning printed on the side, I assume to not upset the bacteria inside. Instead, I swirl gently in between sips, hoping that the flavors on the packaging will come through as promised.
It’s delicious, but it shouldn’t be. My enjoyment is from either tendencies of sadomasochism or a mature tongue. There is a sweetness from the blood orange that percolates through to my taste buds in the way that orange juice does through a Hair-of-the-Dog after a night of heavy drinking. It’s refreshing but elusive, and it makes me go back for a second swig in hopes of getting a satisfying taste of orange juice. The rose comes in as an aftertaste, delicately giving way to a strange robustness, but in the way that cleaning fluid carries it’s gentle smells in an unventilated bathroom. It creates a visceral sequence of mouth feelings: refreshing, burning, soapy. Like walking through a cloud of perfume with your mouth wide open.
Now that my mouth is prepared for the initial sting, I take another sip. Either I’m acclimated to the taste, or I have developed Stockholm Syndrome, and this time I discover a heartiness to the drink I didn’t notice before. It’s like a sangria, but with a flavor so intense that I can’t help myself from slipping into a fantasy of sipping it on the deck of a ski chalet with my wintertime lover. It’s intoxicating — perhaps the probiotic bacteria has reached my brain — and before I know it I finish the bottle and start on the second one.
I plan on going back for more. Consider this less of a recommendation and more of a threat. I don’t know how long they’ll remain in stock, but I plan on getting my share. And I think the cashier was flirting with me. Maybe it does live up to its name.
