Oh, the horror!!

Well, first of all, I am embarrassed yet again. Mainly because I have been slacking and have not posted anything new for quite a while now. Truly, this was not because I did not have anything to say - anyone who knows me even a little will tell you that is NEVER the case. Mostly, it was because I have been so stressed out by school and by life that I just have not had the opportunity to sleep well, let alone write on my pretty little blog. I am still stressed, and will continue to be for at least the next 12 hours (BIG day for me at school - once this one is over, I can kick back a little), but I tried something yesterday that required at least a short entry.

Remember a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about my little kombucha obsession? Well, it continues today and my little brewing experiment is progressing nicely on my countertop even as I type. It should actually be ready by next Monday, so expect a blurb about my first home-brewed batch of pomegranate-blueberry kombucha first thing Tuesday morning. (Again, that presupposes that I will not need to visit the nearby hospital for a stomach pumping Monday evening. Fingers crossed!) Anyway, back to today's topic - yesterday my daughter and I were grocery shopping and, like I have been doing for a couple of weeks now, I stopped by the refrigerated section of the health foods aisle at my store to pick up a new flavor of kombucha. (I have tried quite a few at this point and they have all been tasty in their own way.) Based on the fact that I am currently fighting off the remnants of a cold and, yesterday, a minor hangover to boot (I said I was stressed - no judgement, people!), I decided to try the "green" kombucha, which listed a number of plant based ingredients, the most intriguing of which was blue algae. I am not sure why I thought that this was a good idea, but the color looked so dang pretty in the store. It was this beautiful, clear, kelly-green that looked fresh and just seemed to smack of healthful benefits. I was kind of excited to try it since it was the first non-fruit based version that I have picked up.

So, I get home, unload the groceries and whip out the emerald kombucha. I started to shake it, gently, to distribute the culture and because there seemed to be some green sediment at the bottom of the bottle. I was kind of fascinated by how quickly the oz-like liquid morphed into dirty, sludgey swamp water because, apparently that is what the sediment was. Then, because I shook the bottle a little too much, it started hissing at me, so I unscrewed the cap and spewed fizzy, algae laced kombucha everywhere. Seriously, the foam that now covered the bottle, my hands and filled most of the glass that I managed to get out had these filthy, scummy little specks in it. I thought it couldn't possibly smell or taste as bad as it looked, so I sniffed it cautiously and was smacked in the face with a rather rancid, soured spinach (and I guess algae) odor. It was like a glass full of the Bog of Eternal Stench (little game for you - guess the movie!)....ok, maybe not that bad, but god, it smelled foul. You might think that I wouldn't drink something that I thought looked and smelled disgusting. Well....you would be wrong. I thought it couldn't POSSIBLY taste as bad as it looked and as bad as it smelled. So, I held my breath and chugged.

Moral of the story here is: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...it is a duck. The green kombucha was nasty. It completely changed color upon mixing (red flag one); it looked putrid after mixing (red flag two); it smelled terrible (red flag three); and finally, it tasted worse than the aloe vera juice that I tried a couple of years ago, which earned its own "tart ass" moniker (red flag four). Lesson learned. By the way, the reason I chugged it, if you haven't guessed it already, is because I am cheap. I spent $3.19 on that stuff and, by God, I was going to down it if it killed me. I also kept it down, although, for about 30 minutes after, I kind of felt like I was going to puke. Little too much information? Maybe, but that's what I am here for, folks. My pain is your gain and here is the message of the day: DON'T DRINK THE GREEN KOMBUCHA (unless you like that sort of thing - more for you, really). Stay tuned.