What is Kombucha? What is Kombucha Good For?

What Is Kombucha?

Changing The World, One Gut At A Time™

(Looking for the Kombucha Kamp Content Library? Click Here.)

Kombucha is a fermented tea made by combining sweetened tea with a living culture of bacteria and yeast (often called a SCOBY). Over time, these microorganisms consume sugars and transform the tea into a lightly effervescent, tangy beverage with organic acids, trace compounds, and complex flavor.

At its core, Kombucha is not a product or a trend… it’s a process. One rooted in fermentation traditions that humans have relied on for thousands of years to preserve food, enhance flavor, and work with beneficial microbes rather than against them.

Today, Kombucha is brewed both at home and commercially around the world, but the fundamentals remain the same: tea, sugar, culture, time, and the right conditions.

Why People Brew (and Drink) Kombucha

People come to Kombucha for many reasons, and most of them evolve over time.

Some are drawn in by the flavor.

Others by curiosity about fermentation.

Many by the desire to better understand what they’re consuming.

Home brewing Kombucha offers:

control over ingredients
Cost savings (home brewed Kombucha comes out to only PENNIES per glass compared to store-bought)
insight into fermentation as a living process
the ability to adjust flavor, strength, and timing
a deeper connection to food preparation

Whether you eventually brew at home, buy commercial Kombucha, or do both, understanding how Kombucha is made helps you make informed choices and avoid common misconceptions.

👉 Learn more about how Kombucha impacts your health

How Kombucha Kamp Approaches Education

Kombucha Kamp exists to make Kombucha education clear, practical, and grounded in real experience.

We focus on:

fermentation literacy rather than hype
safety, consistency, and confidence
understanding variables like temperature, time, and ingredients
helping people troubleshoot without fear or overwhelm

Our goal is not to tell you what to believe about Kombucha, but to help you understand how it works so that you can decide what’s right for you.

If you’re curious about the people behind this work, you can learn more about Hannah Crum (The Kombucha Mamma) and why Kombucha Kamp has become a trusted educational resource worldwide.

What Do You Want to Learn Next?

Kombucha can be as simple or as deep as you want it to be. To make learning easier, we’ve organized our educational resources into guided pathways based on experience level and interest. Each page is filled with content curated for brewers at each level of fermentation experience and will help to guide your journey into this funky, fantastic world.

Brine Beginners

New to brewing Kombucha or just getting started

If you’re brand new, cautious, or want clear, step-by-step guidance, this is the best place to begin. You’ll learn the fundamentals of brewing safely, understand the basic process, and avoid common beginner mistakes.

👉 Visit Brine Beginners

👉 Or start with How to Make Kombucha

Culture Creators

Already brewing and ready to go deeper

If you’ve brewed Kombucha before and want to improve consistency, flavor, carbonation, or troubleshoot issues, this pathway is designed for you. Topics include temperature control, fermentation timing, continuous brewing, and refinement. We’ll also get into additional ferments like Kefir and Jun.

👉 Visit Culture Creators

Not Sure Where You Fit? 🤔

If you’re somewhere in between—or just want guidance tailored to you—you can take our quick quiz and we’ll point you toward the resources that best match your goals and experience level.

👉 Take the Kombucha Quiz

(COMING SOON. The quiz is optional. You’re always free to explore on your own.)

Other KKamp Ferments

Water Kefir (Tibicos)

Start brewing Kombucha’s quick and easy cousin.

Perhaps the most starter-friendly ferment available – ready in only 24-48 hours – Water Kefir (also called Tibicos) is a tasty, easy way to get started with fermentation. Sweeter and more mellow than Kombucha, you can always be sure to have a probiotic soda ready for when you want it! (And this is probiotic in the truest sense… not just a bunch of inulin in carbonated water like the “probiotic sodas” on the shelves at the market.)

👉 How To Brew Water Kefir

Milk Kefir

Creamy, Tangy, and Oh–So-Decadent.

If you love yogurt, you’ll love milk kefir. Created by a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast that thrives on the nutrients present in milk as a substrate, it’s another wonderful way to cultivate new cultures to keep you gut microbiome diverse and thriving. You can make everything from homemade ranch dressing to a tangy Kefir Eggnog to Light-As-Air Kefir Pancakes with the yummy, versatile ferment.

👉 How To Brew Milk Kefir

A Note on Learning Kombucha (or ANY Ferment)

There is no single “right” way to approach fermentation. Some people want a reliable daily brew. Others want to experiment. Some simply want to understand what’s happening inside the jar.

Wherever you land, know this:

You don’t have to memorize everything or read everything at once.

This page exists so you always know where to start—and where to come back to when questions arise.

For your convenience, we’ve also curated a complete, ever-growing, constantly updated map of all our Kombucha fermentation guides, troubleshooting resources, and safety information so that you have access to everything you need at a glance.

📚 Visit the Kombucha Kamp Content Library →