Since the first days of July, extremely hot weather prevails in most of the territory of Ukraine, in some places the thermometer reaches above 40 degrees. One of the options for quenching thirst is kombucha, a drink with a sweet and sour refreshing taste. It is based on ordinary kombucha.
Lviv brand Satsuma entered the market with its kombucha only last year, despite the fact that founders Mykhailo Osypov and Khrystyna Dzyuba have been conducting experiments with fermentation for a long time.
“We generally like different fermented foods and drinks, and we’ve been experimenting in this area for a long time. We have been making kombucha for five years, just in jars at home. And it always turns out very tasty. Somehow we ordered the first bottles and branded them,” Mykhailo Osypov tells AgroPortal.ua.
The people of Lviv note that only a year has passed since the launch, and their kombucha is already presented in a fairly large number of establishments in Lviv and continues to expand.
Today’s assortment Satsuma consists of four flavors of kombucha. The first taste is green tea, thanks to the magic of fermentation, the flavors of apple and pear have been revealed in it. The second is kombucha based on tea rose and hibiscus. It tastes like berry compote with notes of barberry and currant. The third kombucha is made on the basis of black tea. And this season there is a novelty — elderberry + mint.
“For this summer, we made an elderberry + mint flavor. Some say the taste is similar to a mojito, while others say it tastes like lemonade. There is no tea at the base of the drink, only elderflower and mint. We buy the flower itself from a large supplier from the Lviv region,” adds Hrystyna Dzyuba.
Entrepreneurs produce up to a thousand bottles per month, but I note that everything depends on the weather, because this is a seasonal product. It’s hot right now, so the demand is crazy.
For autumn-winter, Lviv residents plan to add kimchi to the assortment, there is already a worked-out recipe, and there were test deliveries to the city’s establishments.
Ivanna Panasyuk, AgroPortal.ua
