Common sense should tell us that any substance that cures 'everything' should be suspect. Nevertheless, ancient recipes with mysterious Asian connections hold a certain allure, not just for the gullible, but for those who are s eeking to relieve the otherwise intractable discomforts of chronic illness and advancing age. In the USA, a national telephone survey revealed that the us e of un conventional therapy is far higher than previously reported ,
with one third of those surveyed using unorthodox treatments (Eisenberg et al., 1993). Individuals suffering from cancer, AIDS and other diseases that often remain recalcitrant to
conventional medical t herapy are mos t likely to experiment with acupuncture, chiropractic,
spir it ua l healing, herbal medicine and folk remedies such as Kombucha teas . There is growing recognition that regular tea drinking can be good for health (Landau & Chang, 1997) and it is often the case that traditional fermentations improve the nutritive value of foodstuffs (Hesseltine, 1965). Thus, it may eventually be shown that Kombucha teas are beneficial in some way.