Kombucha Mushroom
Interesting Facts about the Kombucha Mushroom
The culture of the kombucha mushroom contains yeast and a bacteria of acetic acid. It normally looks like a giant pancake. It is used in a tea that dates all the way back to the Chinese Qin Dynasty, around the year 250 BC. The people of China believed that the kombucha mushroom aided the stomach and spleen, and helped in digestion. Drinking it in tea was believed to let the body focus on healing. In fact, they called it “Immortal Health Elixir”.
The medical properties of the kombucha mushroom got to Eastern Europe and Russia some time in the early part of the modern age, which is the time of history when most of the population could first afford to purchase tea. The origin of the name kombucha is believed to have originated in 415 A.D. in Japan. As the story goes, the Emperor of Japan was treated with the tea by a physician from Korea, named “Kombu” or “Kambu” and the people combined his name with their native word “cha” which means tea. In Japan of current times, however, kombucha tea is called “kocha kinoko”, which means “mushroom tea”. “Kombucha” in Japanese refers to a warm drink that is made from powdered kelp.
The kombucha mushroom is often flavored with rose hip. It contains several different types of cultures and also amino acids, enzymes and organic acids. When it is brewed into a tea in a home environment, you can't tell the exact amounts of the different compounds in the tea.
The health claims made about the kombucha mushroom focus on a chemical that is called glucuronic acid. This is metabolized by the liver and aids in detoxification. The reason scientists think that this is the chemical that does the detoxification is that they have found glucuronic acid and waste chemicals in the urine, after someone has consumed kombucha mushrooms, generally in tea.
The published information on kombucha mushroom safety is limited, since there have never been any recognized studies on humans. Some case reports have also found cutaneous anthrax, metabolic acidosis and liver damage. Additional reports are suggestive that one should take care before regularly drinking kombucha mushroom tea if they are on prescription medications or hormone replacement therapy. Kombucha tea was shown to have increased the size of the spleen and the liver in mice, but hasn't been shown to have any toxicity in rats. Some people may also have allergic reactions to kombucha mushroom tea.
Some adverse reaction reports may link the problems with kombucha mushroom tea to the conditions present when it is fermented. If those are unsanitary, or if compounds leach from the fermentation vessels, then the tea may be more dangerous to drink. It is of the utmost importance to strive for cleanliness when you are brewing kombucha tea; if a culture is contaminated, you can tell because it will appear as common mold, of brown or green color. Care should be taken whenever drinking kombucha tea, to watch for side effects after you consume it.
Interestingly, the kombucha mushroom is not actually a mushroom, exactly. It is quite often referred to as a mushroom, but technically it is a zoogleal mat.