On the occasion of the launch of personal collection and sale of our products in Prague's Charaktery store, we had the opportunity to interview the passionate founder of Loklok kombucha, Michal Ďuriník. His passion for kombucha excited us so much that we decided to share with you his insight into the world of popular fermented drinks in today's blog.
Loklok kombucha has been on the market for four years, and during that time the team managed to develop an advanced drink with health benefits researched by a scientific study. In addition to health food stores, pharmacies and our own e-shop, you can also find Loklok in more than 200 cafes throughout the Czech Republic. It is also thanks to the balanced taste, which can be placed somewhere between iced tea, cider and prosecco.
What is kombucha?
,, Right at the beginning, a question with so many answers! Kombucha is a daily check of the "I do something for myself" box. Kombucha is a tea fermented by a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. It is a drink with a thousand-year tradition. It's the answer to what to have in a restaurant when I don't want sweet lemonade, coffee or alcohol. It's the thing that gets me through the afternoon energy slump. It's the reason why I won't go back to alka after dry February. It is a way to take care of your microbiome. It is a helper for autoimmune problems. It is a daily support for healthy digestion."
Our parents already made kombucha at home, why do you think that its popularity is growing again now?
" It is thanks to the concurrence of several favorable circumstances. Thanks to Covid, people are more interested in their health. Along with that, the number of those who (at least temporarily) do not drink alcohol is growing. There is also a growing awareness of the importance of the microbiome and the need to take care of it. These are all needs that kombucha perfectly satisfies. I also know kombucha from childhood, it was grown at home because "it's healthy", but I only learned to drink it in Australia. Abroad, mainly in the USA and Australia, domestic cultivation is not as common as here, but they are ahead of the curve with the availability of kombucha in stores and in gastropubs."
There has been a lot of talk about the intestinal microbiome in recent years, why is it so important to take care of it?
" A balanced microbiome is the basis of the health of the whole body. It is a building block of the immune system, affects the absorption of nutrients from food, but also affects the quality of the skin or our sleep. A separate chapter is intensive communication on the gut-brain pathway (the so-called gut-brain axis) and how the composition of the microbiome affects our mood, experience and overall mental well-being. When our microbiome is not well, we are not well either."
How does kombucha help the microbiome?
" At Loklok, we make sure that when we say "Cheers!" we could be really serious with a light heart. The basis of the health effect of our kombucha is the certified probiotic strain B acillus Coagulans, whose positive effects on health are supported by dozens of studies. Thanks to the extremely long fermentation, Loklok is also rich in organic acids and other metabolites of the symbiotic kombucha culture, which act on the microbiome environment and synergistically with probiotic bacteria.
The individual components that kombucha contains are quite well researched, especially in vitro. However, there is no published high-quality, comprehensive study examining the effects of kombucha as a synergistic whole directly on humans. That is why we decided to carry out such a study and I am happy that, thanks to the excellent work of the entire Loklok team, we are currently conducting a research study in cooperation with the Bohunice Faculty Hospital in Brno. It is a methodologically robust, placebo-controlled, double-blind study, and although the final statistics are not yet available, the interim results are very positive. If we manage to publish it in a professional press, this study will be unique in the world."
What is the difference between your kombucha and other brands?
,, Loklok is "Kombucha 2.0", the development of the recipe cost us several years of concentrated work and the result is a unique drink. Unlike regular (and premium) brands, Loklok does not have to be kept in the fridge non-stop, as regular kombucha can spoil after a few days of non-refrigeration. Loklok is completely alcohol-free, suitable not only for drivers, but especially for children and their mothers, in contrast, ordinary kombucha can contain around one percent of alcohol. And as we already discussed, Loklok is the only kombucha that we know of that is tested in a quality scientific study. The key to these properties is an unusually slow and long fermentation process, which makes the relationship between ordinary kombucha and Loklok similar to the relationship between burčák and wine .
Can anyone make quality kombucha at home?
" Yes and no" We are very fond of home cultivation and we basically run a kombucha consultation on our company Instagram and e-mail, so many questions are sent to us by home kombucha makers. Homemade kombucha is a great hobby and an excellent platform for exercising your imagination. After all, the homemade kombucha kit used to be very popular on our e-shop. We don't have it there right now, but that's because we're preparing a new, much, much better version of it!
It happens that people tell us "I know kombucha, my mom used to make it and I don't like it". Then they taste ours and in an hour they already have a subscription to the e-shop. Homemade preparation also carries certain risks, among other things, the alcohol level is around one percent, or the fact that your yeast will overgrow and you may not be able to sit down after drinking it. But just like any hobby, even kombucha can be brought to a great level, and we get to taste very refined and balanced flavors from our customers."
