Kombucha | Inside the UK's only kombucha microbrewery

The Fermentation Year

Livia Palmiero discusses her journey running World Bazaar Kombucha in Kentish Town, a space where her family has operated since the late 198

Key takeaways

• Livia uses a base of three tea varieties (green, black, and white) and three sugars (cane, coconut, and muscovado) to create complex microbial environments.
• The brewery operates on a zero-waste principle, even repurposing scoby into 'scoby calamari' for food applications.

Main topics

• Zero-waste fermentation
• Kombucha brewing techniques

Notable quotes

Waste is not waste but can be put into something else.

Conclusion

The episode serves as an inspiring testament to how small-scale, princ

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) We are at World Bazaar Kombucha. I'm with Livia. I met you a few weeks ago, about a month ago. Yeah. We're collaborating. Supper Clubs, your first Supper Club series. Speaker 1 (0:10) Yeah. Speaker 2 (0:10) And what took me when I first, actually, I was blown away by everything. And that's why I'm here. So I can share the experience I had with you with a broader audience. But what really I loved when you first started your introduction. to the group that were around the table the night we met, is that you talked about your childhood in this very spot. So can you just allude to that? Sure. So Speaker 1 (0:38) we bought this place in 1988. I was around five, six years old. And we actually were down the road. We were particularly down the road at Fortis Road. But we are... Tolly Italian Patisserie is how we started off. My parents were making cakes and delivering them to Italian restaurants primarily. And then eventually we made our own patisserie down the road. So then we branched out and instead of continuing to run that space, we ended up buying this space in Kentish Town, you know, prime location opposite the station. So there's a lot of history in this space. We started at... As a patisserie, I, you know, was making croissants, making cakes in the kitchen with my parents. You know, a bit of a neglectful childhood, but, you know, nevertheless, I can definitely value where it's brought me today and the skills it's taught me, the tenacity, the resilience, that kind of stuff. The mindset as well. I really remember my dad just putting me on a stool, apron tied round, said, right, look at the... clock on the left look look at your utensils on the right we need to you know execute this task make this cape or whatever in this time let's get on with it kind of thing yeah so I really always remember that moment because I think that taught me a life skill there it's like what have I got in front of me what do I need to do and then like go for it kind of thing Speaker 2 (2:12) Just getting stuck in and maximizing the time you have. Yeah, exactly. Speaker 1 (2:16) We come from a little village in the valleys of Naples, province of Benarendo. Fraction of a fraction of the province of Benarendo. And, you know, there were very much farmers, bricklayers, stonemason type people, you know, humble little village. Hands on. Absolutely hands on. You know, I remember running in and going, nonna, nonna. And she had a chicken on her lap and she just cracks its neck. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you know. But yeah, you know, from the land essentially. So, and it was a very kind of zero waste concept. as most things in the past was. There was no such thing as a dustbin. It was only for dust, not for everything else. So I think that stuck with me. Speaker 2 (3:02) I mean, that's another thing that really blew my mind coming here. It's everywhere. I've taken pictures of all your sort of, this is what we're about, closed loop. So tell me a bit more about that. Everything you do is thought about the whole cycle and the end product gets reused and recycled. From the laps starting, like the kombucha scoby, the culture. Yeah. You're using it to make laps. I Speaker 1 (3:26) mean, that's something now, but I can definitely say from even the patisserie days, when my parents were making the chicken escalope, for instance, and you needed the breadcrumbs to make the chicken, the Milanese, we would use our bread leftover. So before doing kombucha, Yes, I had all these kind of added skills through catering, through art, through psychotherapy. That was something I was really passionate about. Do I return to being an artist after being a mum? Or do I want to be stuck in a room? Do I like the capitalist model? So then I went into gardening and I was very interested in soil health and I was thinking about compost and I was thinking about... how I love the idea of giving back to the earth rather than just stripping away from it. So I was actually starting off more passionately about the closed loop system. So for me, it was like, what product would actually define me? And then when I came across the light bulb moment of going, actually, let's do kombucha, because that's another story, but I won't elongate the story. So I was like, yeah, this definitely... you know is at the heart of all my values because it's so circulatory in the fact that my first post on instagram for example was about the mother culture and the mother culture doesn't need to be thrown away and be put back into the soil and enriches the soil health so i was like this is amazing you know for once as human beings we're elongating the life the reciprocity of taking and giving exactly so we don't do a lot of i mean we're Speaker 2 (5:10) labeled as consumers rather than, you know, participants or community. I Speaker 1 (5:15) do very much think that's the patriarchal model, you know, which men and women are suffering from and the world is. And that's why we are here today quite disconnected and, you know, not in harmony with living with nature. And I think we're suffering from that. I think we're lonelier than we've ever been. Yeah, so the original question was my passion. started really from the circuitry process of Speaker 1 (5:46) how waste is not waste but can be put into something else. And when I came across the idea with my friend using kombucha at the heart of that, it was a no-brainer. It's like, as human beings, we all want to get together, we all want to eat, we all want to drink, we all want to play, sing, hug. So for me, that's what this space is about. It's kombucha at the heart, but it does so many other things. So many more. Speaker 2 (6:13) One thing I love about kombucha is it's often referred to in some technical forms as well as a tea fungus. It has a lot of sort of links with mushrooms, which then also have links with networks and community. Speaker 1 (6:30) Yeah. And I applied for an Ograni Award, which is part of the slow food movement. They've got an international movement and that is... an umbrella it's a project about going everything we're talking about essentially you know slowing things down going back to nature being in harmony so like we're sitting here next to a fungi lamp beautiful which essentially is like the mushroom you would harvest out of the ground fruiting spore and it's very similar to when you look at the jars behind me and you see the scoby the pellicle floating at the top you know all things are connected Absolutely. And I think that's what I love. So you've brought me, brought us a bottle of your kombucha share. This is your base kombucha? This is my base flavor. So the reason why I'm different is I use three varieties of teas from the Camellia Sinensis tea plant. So naked nettles is Speaker 2 (7:27) what you're calling it. Speaker 1 (7:28) And so that's my first fermentation process, three teas, three sugars. And then... My second fermentation, I infused all of them with nettles. So the one we're drinking now is naked nettles and that's naked kombucha with nettles only. And that's the base flavor. And then from that flavor, I take on other flavors. Fantastic. So Speaker 2 (7:51) you explained to us when you were giving the initial tour when I met you, why you use three different teas and why you use three different sugars. Do you want to explain that a bit? Speaker 1 (8:03) Yeah, so I will start by saying I'm very much not a scientist. I'm a brewer. So, you know, all my reasonings tend to be quite sentient. And obviously it's taken me on a path of interest about microbial activity. In fact, I'm similarly to you part of the Fermenters Guild. And they have started something called the Fermentation Exchange. So at London Metropolitan University, the microbiology department, they very much are interested in... the science behind the live activity that is happening. So kombucha is very much a multi-dynamic variable process. So my aim is to give as much nutritional characteristic as possible. So the environment for that fermentation to take place. But the more you add in, the more, I don't know, variable results you may get. So I can't say for sure, but I'm curious. We know that each tea gives different characters and we know that each sugars give different characters. So by providing a variety, I'm providing that opportunity for the fermentation and science to take place. Now, until I'm lab testing that. I can't know for sure, but I'll be interested to see if it develops a larger microbiome results in the end. It's kind of playing Speaker 2 (9:30) on that 30 plants in a week. Just get the more diversity you have, the more nutrient access and the more nutritional scope, isn't it? Speaker 1 (9:39) It's the same as our gut and the same as the soil. Again, all things are connected to them. It's very similar. If Speaker 2 (9:46) you Speaker 1 (9:46) look at something, what's going on beneath our feet and what's going on up in space, I mean... I don't think you need to be too smart to realize that there are quite similar things going on. And mind-blowing, really. Speaker 2 (10:00) Absolutely. So the Speaker 1 (10:01) three teas you're Speaker 2 (10:02) using, you're using a green, a black, and a white tea. And then the sugars, which sugars are you using? Speaker 1 (10:09) I'm using a light cane sugar, coconut sugar, and a deeper muscovado sugar. But they can be temperamental. So you need to go, you kind of need to learn your ratio. For example, coconut and muscovado sugar can actually encourage mold and poor scoby growth. So it took a while to get there, but it also adds on the depth of flavor unique to my brand. So I do that also for the characteristical flavors too. I mean, I quite like my flavors to be quite bold. You know, I'm a Negroni fan. I'm a red wine palate fan. So, you know, I mean, ultimately you're going with my palate. As my customer, you're just going, like, do I like your palate? Yeah. Interestingly enough, research has shown that we share each other's microbes, you know, with a kiss, with a, with. I think even just talking to one another. Yeah, living in the same house. Speaker 2 (11:10) Absolutely. Dancing Speaker 1 (11:11) microbes are around all the time, right? So then you start to share a similar gut in a way. Yeah, and you get that with, I mean, you have, I Speaker 2 (11:19) can't Speaker 1 (11:20) count Speaker 2 (11:20) quickly, but you have about 24,