I was at the Mind Body Spirit filming my debut with Extraordinaire Digital Media, when spotted the colourful sign and I muscled my way in through a lines of hungry expo goers, to grab a taste of the drink that quenches my thirst on a daily basis in America. I was keeping my fingers crossed it would be good. Hoping the ginger would be as kick ass as my beloved elixir, so readily available in California. I took a sip and was presented with an explosion of bubbles…and yes, the ginger was full throttle. I decided to chat up the founders, Daphnie Charest and Robert (Robbie) Charles, and see if I could get an interview. They kindly agreed.
Kombucha is a fermented drink, made fizzy by a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) that feed off sugar and (green) tea to create a fermentation process that the Chinese have been using for 2000 years to aid good health. As the culture eats all the sugar, it doesn’t have the same negative effects of a sugary drink, so it is suitable for diabetics.
Much sought after in the US, Newsweek reports that between 2008 and 2009, US kombucha sales quadrupled, from $80 million to $324 million.
A brief video of my initial interview is here (my first professional interview..eek!). But then, as the camera man, producer and I made to leave, I found out something about their ‘journey’ to kombucha that intrigued me. It was full of romance, serendipity, travel and love. I went back for more. If you want to know what I discovered, read on.
The Equinox Kombucha Story (so far).
You could say that Kombucha found them. Daphnie had set out on a trip to Asia in 2010. She found herself in a village called Pai, Thailand. Here she discovered Kombucha. Her first experience was in a ‘cool little health food cafe called Good Life’. First sip and she recoiled. Different from anything she had drunk before. She remembers thinking the drink tasted ‘awful’. Unused to a drink that delivered a tang. But, she acquired a thirst for it and fell in love with it. As she did Robbie, upon setting eyes on him at the watery paradise of Tonsai beach, Thailand. She told me;
‘When Robbie and I met I convinced him to go back to Pai because of the beauty and peace of the area and I got him into Kombucha Tea as well. We were drinking it everyday before yoga and could really feel the detoxifying and energising effects. I asked the owner of the shop to tell me more about Kombucha and he showed me his brewery and told me all about it. He gave me a little culture that i smuggled back to Montreal (Quebec, Canada, where i’m from). I was putting on a humanitarian project for 2 Cambodian students with a friend and had to leave my travels’.
But smitten Robbie was not going to let Daphnie go that easily, and he came to find her a few weeks after. The pair worked on the project together. Love was blossoming, not just for each other but for the kombucha. Daphinie and Robbie learned how to brew Kombucha for themselves and were fervently studying about the whole process. ‘I was really getting into the whole thing, reading everything I could get my hands on’.
Once the humanitarian project was complete. The pair took off again. This time to Western Canada, to get work picking cherries, apples & grapes. Once the season ended they had a trip to Mexico planned, to experience shamanistic healing, and fulfil their vision to ‘live in the moment’ and see where life directed them, in their common desire to run more humanitarian projects and give to the world. But nature had other ideas. They discovered Daphnie was pregnant! Projects abandoned they move to Robbie’s home town of Hebden Bridge to prepare. There in this small market town in West Yorkshire, their son Eden was born.
Daphnie told me,
‘The first day I arrived in Hebden Bridge and noticed how much of an alternative town this was. I remember thinking Kombucha would do great here and was surprised nothing [like it] could be found around. I remember Robbie’s eyes became really bright and he thought this was an amazing idea. With the birth of Eden we left the project aside, being busy trying to become parents (!), and were dreaming on how we could set up permaculture projects in Peru. [But] We then put 2 and 2 together and it became obvious that the way we could fund our projects is with Kombucha!’
The new parents racked up hours of research, but couldn’t find anything that compared to the (incredibly popular) American version of Kombucha Tea. Which is unlike the vinegary and flat kombucha they first sampled in Thailand. They decided fizzy and flavoured would be what the market in the UK wanted. So they agreed to market it as a healthy soft drink.
Daphnie said, ‘There is nothing quite like it on the market, in the sense that pretty much all the drinks you get from the shelves are either very sugary, full of chemicals or are pasteurized which defies the whole point of healthiness by heating up [damaging] all the good stuff off the beverage. With the help and support of precious friends and family, Robbie used all his charm and his determination to set up the foundations of our business whilst I was at home brewing as much Kombucha as I could, trying to come to the perfect recipe. And here we are now!’
I asked Daphnie what were their plans for the future of Equinox Kombucha
‘With our company van, a VW lovewagon called The Dude, we are planning to join the UK festivals and spread the word. To reach a younger public, we aim to get our drinks in skate parks. And for people who want an alternative to alcohol [Kombucha has a minimal trace of alcohol] , we are getting it in pubs and bars.’
They are also concentrating on improving the health of the nation, in their own way by spreading the kombucha love and bringing it into mainstream awareness. With obesity increasing in our young population they are trying to show children that the energy drinks on the market are nasty and that there is actually a tasty, fizzy and healthy alternative! They want to replace chemical laden ‘pop’ drinks that are loaded with sugar and chemicals with kombucha.
So where can we get our hands on Equinox Kombucha?!
‘We are supply to Suma and Tree of Life distributors, so our products are everywhere around England, but we don’t exactly know where. We are aware of about 40 British retailers (cafes, restaurants, bars and gyms).
(A number of very large health food shops are wanting to stock their product. Equinox are in the process of expanding to meet the demand)
“We are also exporting to Norway and Finland to some distributors there. And for individuals, they can order it from our website if no local food shop is stocking it yet”.
(A number of very large health food shops are wanting to stock their product. Equinox are in the process of expanding to meet the demand)
“We are also exporting to Norway and Finland to some distributors there. And for individuals, they can order it from our website if no local food shop is stocking it yet”.
Digital Media
Leave a Reply