Story

The First Encounter at an Arts Festival

It all began in 2016, at the very first Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa. What started as a much needed break from work became a turning point. While volunteering, I found myself surrounded by creativity, curiosity, and new experiences, especially fermented foods like sourdough breads and kombucha! One of them was a kombucha workshop, where I learnt about this strange ferment. I didn’t get a chance to drink it. In fact, I composted the SCOBY I was handed. But something about that stuck with me.

Falling for Fermentation

Months later in the U.S., I spotted bottles of kombucha lining the shelves at Whole Foods. This time, I tasted it, for the first time, with open curiosity and everything clicked. The flavour was wild, tangy, complex. I started tasting different brands, researching fermentation, and falling in love with the culture of it all, literally and figuratively.

In San Francisco, I volunteered at a fermentation workshop led by chef Anne Marie. That’s where I really got it, kombucha wasn’t just a drink. It was a process rooted in patience, creativity, and sustainability. She gifted me a piece of her SCOBY, a tiny, living starter which was going to play a big role in Mountain Bee Kombucha’s origins.

The Birth of Mountain Bee

I brought that SCOBY back to Bangalore. Reviving it took effort and time and it barely survived the trip. But when it did, it felt like magic. That little ferment was alive. So was the vision.

What began on a kitchen countertop slowly turned into a mission: to craft real, small-batch kombucha in India, with the same intention and wonder I felt in that first perfect sip. Mountain Bee Kombucha was born—out of travel, taste, fermentation, and a deep desire to offer a  better choice, something bold, inclusive, and alive.