If You Drink Like This... Wouldn't You Get a Bit Healthier?
It's time to stop the prejudice that all health drinks taste bad. Kombucha, a fermented tea beverage with added sugar, is a healthy drink effective for improving digestion and eliminating waste, but its tangy-sweet flavor combined with moderate carbonation makes it taste excellent. This year, determined to maintain a healthy diet, I added kombucha to my shopping cart, when suddenly a scene from a variety show flashed through my mind where someone mixed kombucha with soju. You said you were taking care of your health...?
You can't resist kombucha soju. I prepared lemon, yuzu, berry, and peach flavored kombucha and mixed each with soju in a 1:1 ratio, then rated them.
Lemon Kombucha
As soon as I added and mixed the kombucha powder, a strong tangy aroma filled the air. Even though I only added half the amount of kombucha, the sharp sour taste was very strong. It tasted like lemon soju mixed with about two packets of Lemona. If you like the refreshing taste of calamansi soju or lemon soju, I recommend trying this at least once. It tastes even better when served cold with ice, so keep that in mind! However, the alcohol taste was stronger than expected, and it was disappointing that the characteristic carbonation of kombucha was barely noticeable.
Editor Rating ★★★☆☆
Yuzu Kombucha
As the bubbling foam settled, the sweet aroma of yuzu tea brewed with plenty of yuzu syrup brushed past my nose. After enjoying the scent, I took a sip, and a slight bitterness reminiscent of tangerine or orange peel lingered briefly before fading, leaving a rich sweetness from the yuzu syrup. The sharp sourness was milder, and there was no noticeable alcohol taste, making it easy to drink as if it were a soft drink rather than an alcoholic beverage.
Editor Rating ★★★★★
Berry Kombucha
The berry kombucha cocktail, with its eye-catching red color, resembles the ‘Hongcho Soju’ made by mixing red vinegar with soju in both appearance and taste. It has a sweet and tangy flavor with a bit of berry freshness added to pomegranate vinegar, making it a refreshing and pleasant taste that pairs well with hot summer nights. Like the lemon kombucha cocktail, all the carbonation from the kombucha has disappeared, so adding a little sparkling water to enjoy it more refreshingly is a good idea.
Editor Rating ★★★★☆
Peach Kombucha
The last one to try was the peach kombucha cocktail. After adding the powder and stirring, a pretty pink drink befitting the name ‘Peach’ was completed. I took a sip with high expectations because of the lovely color, but the taste was disappointing. It was somewhere between iced tea and peach milk drink, but the artificial peach flavor was overwhelmingly strong. I liked that it didn’t leave a sticky feeling in the mouth after drinking, like Isultoktok, but the artificial sweetness didn’t blend well with the alcohol.
Editor Rating ★★☆☆☆
Photo by Kim Bomi
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
