As I dive deeper and deeper into this increasingly confusing world of health and wellness, I am bombarded by more and more terminology. By now, most of us have grown familiar with labels like GMO free, gluten free, reduced sodium and organically sourced. And then you start to come across words that sound remarkably similar, but refer to entirely different things. That has been exactly my experience with kombucha, konbucha and kabocha. What’s up with all these Ks and buchas?
Kombucha Is a Fermented Tea
If you’re looking for a little pick me up that’s arguably healthier than coffee or energy drinks, apparently kombucha has become all the rage. Most typically sold as a bottled beverage, kombucha is a fermented tea that undergoes a brewing process similar to that of beer.
You start with black or green tea. This gets fermented with SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast), resulting in a slightly fizzy drink with all sorts of purported health benefits. Some people say it’s an effective stimulant, others claim it boosts your libido and stimulates your immune system. Some even go so far as to say it helps fight cancer and diabetes.
Draw your own conclusions, but the gist of it is that kombucha is a slightly fizzy tea popularly sold in health food stores.
Konbucha Is a Seaweed Drink
Are you ready to be wholly confused? Konbucha, like kombucha, is also a beverage, but it is not a tea.
This becomes far easier to understand when you separate the term into two words: konbu cha. Konbu is an edible form of kelp that is prepared differently from the nori you use in making sushi. Cha literally means “tea” and it’s the same word used in Chinese. Matcha literally translates as “rub tea” or “rubbing tea,” likely related to how you prepare the green tea powder.
Things get really messy, though, considering that “konbu” can alternatively be written as “kombu.” The net result is that when you’re talking about the seaweed-based drink from Japan, you can also call it kombucha… and not be talking about the fizzy tea. Konbu/kombu is most commonly sold as packages of dried seaweed and you may be able to find it as a dried tea in a Japanese supermarket too.
Kabocha Is a Winter Squash
Thankfully, aside from its similar spelling, kabocha has very little to do with kombucha or konbucha. Sometimes called a Japanese pumpkin, kabocha is a winter squash with a tough green skin and a fluffy, sweet, orange flesh. You can steam it, roast it, boil it, pan fry it… treat it like any other kind of squash really. You can eat the rind after cooking; I usually don’t.
We haven’t had much trouble finding kabocha squash in any number of supermarkets around here, but you can always buy the seeds online if you want to grow some on your own. Unlike the first two, though, I imagine kabocha wouldn’t make a very good tea.
Image credit: schvin on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Kombucha tastes pretty good for what it is!! Though there is not enough research to fully back the effectiveness of it for health benefits. I like the fizzyness though some say it’s kind of gross that it’s a bacterial yeast (SCOBY!) Saw my friends make the drink lol..
If people think the “bacterial yeast” is gross, then there are tons of other things they should also avoid. Beer and yogurt (hopefully not together) for starters.
your explanation is a bit bass-ackwards. it’s not that konbu “can also” be written as kombu, it’s that they are 100% same from the gitgo. kombucha is and always was KELP TEA, whether you write it with an -n- or not.
somewhere along the line, however, some RUSSIAN COMPANY started marketing this UNRELATED yeast drink under the BRAND name “Kombucha”, and it spread like wildfire. it’s like putting out a brand of orange juice named “Milk”.
pity the poor nikkei grandmother trying to find ACTUAL kombucha anymore!
kabocha, otoh, is 100% unrelated. in japanese it isn’t rly close enuf to cause any confusion. but they are confused as hell as to why everyone in the word is using “kombucha” on something which clearly…ISN’T.
(a generation ago it was “hibachi” — japanese word for CAULDRON which marketers switched to “grill” in english!)
PS: kabocha, the pumpkin, likely comes from portuguese “cabaça”, CABBAGE.
french equiv is spelled “caboche”, which really drives the connection home!
in modern japanese cabbage is rendered “kyabetsu”. LUCKILY — it could just as well have come out “kabachi”, then where would we be?!
Thanks for all this! Language, especially when words get “borrowed” across languages, is always such a complex and imperfect thing.