It’s always good to be health conscious, but these days staying healthy and having a strong immune system has definitely taken on a whole new significance. And as we look around for nutritious food and drinks to put into our bodies, one small Macau shop that has become synonymous with healthy living invMacau, The Blissful Carrot, has just the thing. Their delicious homemade Kombucha tea has become increasingly popular over the past couple of years, and in the past two months in particular.
“Definitely more people are looking for healthier alternatives, and are thinking more about what they’re eating and drinking, and our Kombucha specifically started selling a lot quicker,” says Alyson Lundstrom, one of the founders of the business, that like so many other small companies in town has had to struggle to adjust to the new situation since January.
“We were worried because we lost our exports and we lost our casino clients, so it was unbelievable when we saw that the Kombucha was selling a lot more than normal.”
Kombucha tea is a fermented drink that likely has its origins in Manchuria in the Qin Dynasty, around 220 B.C., although the true details are shrouded in mystery.
“It has an extremely mythical origin story,” notes Alyson. “One story is that someone was brewing sweet tea in China when a fly landed in the tea and some bacteria on the fly’s feet cultivated the tea and formed the SCOBY, and some guy decided to drink it. Certainly it became well known for its healing qualities after that.”
The SCOBY (Symbotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) is a pancake-shaped culture placed in the sweetened tea and left to ferment for two to three weeks at room temperature, before the mixture is placed in bottles for another couple of weeks to allow the CO2 to be released and carbonate the drink.
“Of course, fermented foods are well known in many countries,” says Alyson. “From China it branched out to Japan and eventually to western countries. In the 1960’s it made its way to the western states of the US with the hippies. It became popular again in the 90s, and then around 2010 had another wave of popularity, but still took another five years to reach the commercial market here in Asia.”
The fermentation process produces a beverage full of lactic-acid bacteria which are good for the gut biome.
“Kombucha is classified as a functional living food, so it’s full of vitamins, antioxidants, enzymes, and microorganisms like the bacteria and yeast,” Alyson explains. “These are well known to help balance gut flora, and 70 percent of the cells related to your immune system are located in your gut. So if your gut is healthy and in balance, so is your immune system, and that can also affect everything else in your body, like your sleeping habits, eating habits, food disorders, auto-immune disease, so it is a bit of a panacea.”
Alyson started Blissful Carrot with her business partner Marisa Randalls back in 2014, and it has come to be known as one of the few places in the city to go to for truly healthy, organic, plant-based meals.
“We were trailing expat spouses originally, just looking for a place to start a community garden. We really just wanted to feed our friends and family the type of healthy food that was on offer in Hong Kong,” says Alyson.
When they came across a small shop space for rent in Taipa Village, they decided to start their business, initially just providing nutritious meals to athletes and acrobats and business people working on Cotai Strip in a very ad hoc way.
“We’re living in a really unique urban environment, constantly dealing with pollution, and 98 percent of our food here is imported, so a lot of it is packaged and full of preservatives, so just by virtue of the fact that that’s the only thing you can find, you’re already putting a lot of that into your body.”
As for how she got into brewing Kombucha, Alyson recalls, “A lady gave me a SCOBY, and I have a science background, so I thought let’s just see how this thing grows. The shop was about a year old and most of the people coming here were our friends, so I left it here in a jar on the counter top, almost just as a conversation starter. People would try it and it would taste very acidic and horrible, but then the same people would come back and ask for more of it, because it makes you feel better and puts your body back in balance.”
Today, with the help of a small hardworking team, The Blissful Carrot produces a couple of hundred cases a month, and offers a range of delicious flavors including pineapple and lemongrass, dragonfruit, and mango-passionfruit.
“Yeah the flavors got a bit out of control,” laughs Alyson. “We started with six, and then we added another four seasonal flavours that just took off. And just when we’re about to take one flavour off the list, we’ll have a big order for it and have to keep making it!”
The Blissful Carrot
79A R. Direita Carlos Eugenio, Taipa +853 6298 8433 www.facebook.com/blissfulcarrot
