eating and drinking is the foundation of life and we want to be a part OF EXPLORING EVERY possibility. at it's best, the objects we offer embody this commitment.
votive is less of a tea, kombucha, beverage, chai, etc.etc. kinda project and more of... well we don't really know yet. what we do know, is that these categories + others are where we are starting, and the only current limitation is no alcoholic products/fermentations.
why no booze? we got nothing against it tbh. the alcohol industry is def full of bad stuff and has harmed people, but most other industries have too unfortunately. some of the reason is regulatory and practical. more than any of that though, the na world seems to be wide open and hungry for stuff that stands alone. we love na beer, wine, etc. but there's so many beverages that stand on their own and are more than just a familiar product that's just been de-alcoholized.
another reason is griffin (our founder (hi it's me writing)) has spent his early career as a beer brewer and as a director of bev at a coffee and tea company, and he (I?) feels there is a huge intersection between these two beverage industries that has so much to offer.
that part of why chai + kombucha fermentations are a good starting point for us. chai, bc we love to be a part of the coffee scene, and noticed a lack of a tea-forward, small batch, complex options being available and used by our local favorite cafes. Buch, bc of our experience with and passion for tea + fermentation. kinda a no brainer.
isn't there alcohol production in kombucha fermentations? well yeah, kinda. the settled-upon limit for a beverage to have alcohol in it w/o being considered 'alcoholic' is %.5 ABV. kombucha can come up anywhere around there, more or less, but we've got ours locked in below that threshold.
the kombucha fermentation is in two parts after you add starter to you're sweetened substrate, which is usually tea but can be most anything. the two parts are nicely captured by the acronym scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). the first part (yeast) is pretty much the same as any other alcoholic fermentation you'd find (beer, wine, etc.) the fermentable sugars are getting eaten up by the yeast, and the by-product of that process is alcohol and co2. the second part (aab) is sorta like what you get when making vinegar - the bacteria eats ethanol and produces acetic acid as a by-product.
you can already see the symbiosis symbiosis-ing. but yeah, there's always going to be little tiny bit of ethanol produced by the yeast that did get the chance to interact with the aab in time to convert. the good thing is that we've found ways to lock in the productivity of both the yeast and aab to work in perfect harmony.
this isn't like other kombucha I've had. where's the juice? no you're right, it's different. we feel strongly that the (very nice and expensive) teas we source contain so much flavor and give the kombucha fermentation so much to develop that we really don't need to add anything. in fact, adding stuff in our context would take away the experience and purity of tasting the fermented, differentiated, single-origin teas. to be honest, we think these teas are as complex and interesting as wine and are a great new adventure for those who enjoy exploring that world. our teas work great a na food pairing option where a white wine might have first been considered.
alright, that's all for now. do please be unshy. email any questions to griffin@drinkvotive.com and talk with us. we love to learn and I bet talking to you or trying to answer your questions will help us.
