Kombucha connoisseur Susanna Danieli recently visited her native Italy and reported on the thriving kombucha scene there. She added a number of reviews of Italian brands to her excellent Instagram channel. The new brands that she discovered have been added to the Booch News Worldwide Directory. Now she’s back Stateside in Brooklyn she sat down with Booch News to share her impressions.

Compared to the last time I was in Italy, before I moved here to New York, it was May 2024. And so this was the first time I came back to Italy after moving here. And in this whole year, I think that a lot happened.

More and more people are making kombucha. It’s often people that do not strictly make kombucha, but they start from something else. Let’s take La Beeo Baita, one of the new producers I tried. They are primarily beekeepers. So they use their honey for Jun kombucha. Or, for example, Fattoria Bucolica, another one of the new producers I had the privilege to try. They mainly grow crops, cereals. And so they decided also to make kombucha with the same aromatic herbs that they grow.

She also responded to the cover story on Gambero Rosso, Italy’s leading food and beverage publisher, that kicked off 2024 by featuring kombucha on its cover with the headline “The year of kombucha – Are you ready for the invasion of fermented tea?”. Susy is convinced 2025 will see this prediction happen.

Susy is also concerned about the impact of political situation in Italy on low alcohol drinks, which she describes as “complicated.”

Our minister of agriculture is like the hero for wine makers. He is always going to defend the alcohol lobby until it dies, I think. So yes, for our low alcohol products, it’s not so easy.

Susy has posted over 350 kombucha reviews and is eager to try new brands. So, especially if you are a local producer of artisanal kombucha, she would love to receive shipments of samples and promises to write a detailed, bi-lingual, poetic review. Contact her at susannadanieli9@gmail.com.

Check out the podcast to hear Susy talk about her week-long trip to Italy and developments in the Italian kombucha scene.

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