The Importance Of Being An Active Member In The Expat Community Or How I Found Kombucha In Turkey

Today I wanted to talk about one of the many benefits of being a part of the expat community in Turkey. I love local community too, this is my new country and I love to learn about Turkey, Turkish culture, language, people.

And also expats in Turkey can take you on a journey to their own country without leaving your home even. Just invite your expat and local friends to the cafe for a meet-up and see what happens. You will learn so many new things and maybe even break few prejudices about other nations, hey, why not? 🙂 We can all use more love and freedom in this world and friendships bring exactly that!

This is the story of how I found Kombucha again, thanks to my expat friend in Ankara.

Have you heard of Kombucha yet?

Kombucha is an amazing fermented drink full of numerous health benefits. It is a probiotic-rich beverage made of fermented black tea and sugar. This health miracle drink gets made by SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast), a floating network of bacteria and yeast. You can read more about Kombucha and it’s amazing health benefits here.

I’ve been familiar with Kombucha from the very early age as my grandmother was making this drink in her kitchen. My grandmother was a special woman always knowing the best natural recipes for all kinds of health problems. One of the winners in her home “pharmacy” was Kombucha. I remember a jelly “disc” floating in a big bowl, a strange “creature” making the miracle drink that cures.

After my grandmother left this world, we continued to use many of her natural recipes for different health issues in our family and beyond, but somehow Kombucha didn’t stick with us. It was something that only she could breed and make for us…or that’s what we thought, at least.

How Kombucha found me

In the years following my grandma’s death I must say I didn’t think a lot about Kombucha, but as a big natural life enthusiast and an avid learner about everything related to crunchiness and natural chemical-free health products, I started to see more and more of this cute little “SCOBY” talked about in the online natural health community. Few times I tried to find Kombucha SCOBY while I was in Serbia, but unfortunately didn’t have luck.

After I came to Turkey and moved to Ankara I met a friend from Russia, our fellow expat in Turkey. She is married here and surprisingly lives in the same street as I do. Yipiyeee! I was happy to find a friend so close to me. In one of the conversations, she mentioned she is brewing her own Kombucha at home (The origin of the kombucha is uncertain, but it has been used in Russia for the last few centuries and over there it’s is called Gripa).

We meet again – wonderous Kombucha and me!

I wanted to jump with happiness! My Russian friend gave me her baby SCOBY (every time you brew a Kombucha tea, you will get a new “baby SCOBY” that you can give or even eat, if you like :)) and since then our home is richer for this amazing probiotic drink! I did my research on brewing, adjusted it to our taste and the process doesn’t take so much time. My three-year-old and my husband love Kombucha and we drink it on a daily basis. I am making many different tastes in the second fermentation and at the moment the winner is ginger taste Kombucha.

Expat community in Turkey brings people together

This is one of the many benefits of being a part of the expat community in Turkey. You get to be introduced to so many different cultures and find a Kombucha in your own street. 🙂

Do you have a story to share about how knowing other expats in Turkey changed your life? Share in the comments or write your own story, we would love to publish it.