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But most of these medical claims are merely anecdotal, and very few are backed up by scientific research. Most medical analyses of Kombucha, in fact, have found it to be considerably more dangerous than it is beneficial. Drinking too much Kombucha (more than four ounces a day) has been associated with allergic reactions, jaundice, nausea and head and neck pain. One oft-quoted case in Iowa fingered Kombucha as the probable cause behind the otherwise unexplained death of a middle-aged woman in 1995.

Dr. Connie Basch, a family practitioner and obstetrician at Full Circle Center for Integrative Medicine in Arcata who specializes in herbal, nutritional and holistic medicine, says that Kombucha has been a deep concern of hers for some time, especially the homebrewed kind. She says that contamination from disease-causing bacteria is not only a possibility when brewing Kombucha, it is very difficult to avoid.

"It's always bothered me on an intuitive level that people were culturing thing in their kitchens," she says. When culturing bacteria in the lab Basch says she has had trouble with contamination even under those controlled conditions. "It just seems to me like a very difficult thing to control unless you're a very sophisticated microbiologist, and I just doubt that people who are doing this are," she says with an incredulous chuckle and shake of the head.

Basch has her own horror stories of people she has encountered who have not fared so well in their Kombucha consumption. A colleague of hers, for example, developed hives from an allergic reaction to a batch of homebrew. One of Basch's patients had an especially gruesome reaction to some Kombucha that was most likely contaminated with what Basch diagnosed as Group A Strep.

This woman had been brewing Kombucha, feeding it to her young child and taking it herself'. The child came to Basch with "a horrendous diaper rash" and later developed ulcers in his nose. The woman came in with "a horrible vaginitis" and went on to develop a bad ulcerative skin infection on her fingers and toes. It was all the same bacteria, which struck Basch as odd.

"It's weird - I've never seen as bad [a case] of Strep-vaginitis before. She had basically pus in her vagina, there was no yeast detectable. It looked like bacteria under the microscope, and what grew out was a very strong culture of Strep. And then she was getting pus under her [finger] nails, called a paronychia. So I cultured some of that pus and the same bug grew out. She had a bad ulcer on her toe, and I haven't cultured that, but I think it's the same germ."

Basch says she was unable to confirm if the infection came from the Kombucha because the tea was discarded before she could take a sample. But she says the fact that both mother and child were overrun by the same bug with the same sorts of symptoms is very unusual. "If they had both been eating potato salad at a church picnic or some other likely food, I would have blamed it on that," she says. "But there were no other likely sources in their history than [Kombucha]."

Basch says she has never tried Kombucha "because it's frightening." While some documented evidence does point to the anti-oxidant potential of the drink, she says there are plenty of far safer ways to get the same benefits, such as from blueberries, kale and other darkly and brightly colored vegetables and fruits. So why do people continue to drink Kombucha?

"I don't know," Basch says. "Marketing? Lore? I think people are just trying to do something that's healthy for themselves."

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Editor:
I have to say that the recent "Story of a living tea" made me literally laugh out loud! Quotes like "It's a harmonizing tonic more that any thing else" and "it gives you an interesting energy, I can't put my finger on it" made me really laugh. Let me explain why. These people are simply getting a beer buzz. They are unknowingly brewing a tea flavored Lambic ale.

Lambic ale is made by fermenting sugar(maltose) with naturally occurring yeast and bacteria and flavoring it with hop flowers and fruit. Kombucha is made by fermenting sugar (sucrose) with naturally occurring yeast and bacteria and flavoring it with tea leaves and fruit.

I found a recipe for Kombucha on the net. It called for 320 grams of sugar to be added to one gallon of water. I mixed up a batch and tested its specific gravity. It was 1.280. After fermentation, that would give this tea (ale) an alcohol content of 3.9 percent by volume.

When Gregg Devaney said "It's almost like a drug. It definitely affects how you're looking at things," I suspect that was more the booze talking than any mythical properties. As far as third eye-opening properties and it preferring human contact, I guess a good beer can give you ideas like that.

I hope Alia Bhimani will be prepared to check IDs when she sells it. She will also need to be sure she has an alcohol distribution license. She could have the alcohol removed, like the other brands of Kombucha that are on the market do, but that would mean exposing her Kombucha to a "sterile, automated, humanless production plant where everything is handled by a machine."

Besides, who wants a "near-beer" Kombucha?