CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Boro Beverage crafts and bottles fermented drinks, including kombucha, using inspiration from local agriculture. The Chapel Hill business is once again up for a national award.
“I think it's fascinating, and, I mean, if you were to look up information about a SCOBY it's pretty fascinating how this little culture can do so much,” Carly Erickson, the “mother brewer” and owner of Boro Beverage, said.
If you’ve never seen a SCOBY, you’d probably have some questions about what it is and does.
“A SCOBY stands for a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. So essentially it's just a big, gelatinous pancake that has all of this live bacteria and yeast. It's great for your gut flora and that actually ferments the sugar out of the drink. The byproduct is CO2. So that's why kombucha is a little fizzy and it's a little tart because it is actually converting the sugar. Essentially, if you let kombucha continue to brew, it would become acetic acid, which is vinegar,” Erickson said.
A SCOBY is a key part of making kombucha.
“Kombucha is a fermented tea. It's a tea-based drink that is made from fermenting sugar. So it's tea, sugar, water and then what we call a SCOBY,” Erickson said.
Erickson started making kombucha about a decade ago.
“These are prickly pears from the cactus and they're foraged locally all over this area. They make this, like, beautiful color,” Erickson said.
“We source from local farms in the area, primarily in the Piedmont. And we a lot of times will source fruit that is considered B grade or grade two. So they're products that might not be sold at the farmer's market due to blemishes. And then since we juice, we take all that produce and we use it and then flavor beverages with it,” Erickson said. “That's always been like our mission is to help preserve food waste and to grow the local food economy. So bringing awareness to local farms and eating in season.”
Supporting local agriculture isn’t just a source of inspiration, it’s the backbone of their products.
“Apples we source from the mountains. We get apples from a company called Apple Wedge Packers which is actually a cider mill,” Erickson said. “All the kombucha we stock in our fridge is rotating flavor. So everything in there is like farmer's market-inspired. I'll go to the market on Saturday and be like, ‘OK, beets are in season. Rhubarb, what can I get?’ And I'll just put together a little small batch flavors and those are really for our local customers in the community to come to the shop and get.”
Erickson says she feels responsible to run her business in a way that serves the place she calls home.
“Our slogan, if you will, for our business is ‘Local culture in a glass.’ Culture being a word that can be used in different ways. You know, we think of culture in the kombucha but we also think about the culture within our communities,” Erickson said. “I have an opportunity to utilize my business as, what I like to say, a vessel for change.”
Erickson says it takes about one month to brew a batch of kombucha.
Last year, Boro Beverage won two awards from the Good Food Foundation and they are nominated for another this year.