Water kefir is a fermented drink that’s sweet, a little fizzy, and full of the healthy cultures we millennial health nuts go wild about. Think of it as a soda alternative for your happy belly.
Perhaps you’ve heard of kombucha, and maybe you’ve heard of kefir yogurt, but you probably haven’t heard much about water kefir. I was first introduced to it in Malaysia, by a sweet lady at a local market. My sister and I tried a few samples and immediately fell in love. We hung around that stall for hours (I’m serious. Hours!) chatting with the storeowner about how water kefir was made and what new flavors she was testing out. This all eventually culminated in her bringing out the special batch, which means yes, I did indeed get a little bit tipsy.
I’ve since started making the drink at home, experimenting with different flavors and sugar/water ratios to produce the perfect batch. Alas, I have not yet reached that stage, so rather than posting a recipe, I’ve decided to start with the origin of it all: water kefir grains.
So, what are water kefir grains?
These little suckers are clusters of bacteria and yeast living together, ready to transform you into a probiotic beauty. Primarily composed of intense, science-y bacteria names like Lactobacillus casei/paracasei, water kefir grains feed on sugar water. It’s honestly like magic. You throw these strange jelly like things into a jar of water and enough sugar to send your dentist into shock, and in just a day or two, they gobble it up to produce a delicious, low-sugar soda alternative (1).
Anyways, it’s not entirely known where they come from. Some sources point to Mexico and others to Tibet and Europe. They’ve also got a bunch of fun names, like bees and sea rice, to name a few. Regardless of name or origin, these bad boys are a great way to start your fermentation journey at home. If anything, it’s a significantly cheaper alternative to owning a pet. Is that a weird analogy? Probably. But it’s fun to think of it as raising millions of tiny pets.