Katboocha teaches home kombucha brewing in Rochester workshop series

Katboocha packed another hands-on kombucha class at its Booch Bar at 106 Railroad St. in Rochester on June 23, giving nervous first-time brewers a chance to learn the process in person instead of guessing their way through a video. The workshop fit the kind of instruction beginners cannot get from a screen: live troubleshooting, better sanitation habits, and a clear roadmap from sweet tea to a first batch.

The class came with the basics every home brewer needs. Each participant got a starter kit with a SCOBY, starter liquid farmed from Katboocha, sugar, tea, detailed instructions and a glass of Katboocha kombucha to taste. The event listing said kombucha is a fun, easy and safe fermentation to do at home, and it said the brewery has already taught hundreds of students how to make their own batches since 2017. Attendance was open to anyone 14 and older, with minors required to come with an adult, and each person had to buy a ticket.

That recurring demand for instruction fits the way Katboocha has built its business. Founder Katarina Eddy launched Katboocha in 2017, and the company says the Booch Bar opened in January 2021. The bar sits about 300 feet from the original brewery in Rochester’s Public Market District, tying the class back to the same neighborhood where the brand began. Katboocha identifies itself as Rochester’s first kombucha brewery, and the workshop series has become part of its public-facing identity, not just an add-on to sales.

For beginners, the appeal is practical. Kombucha starts with tea, sugar and culture, and Katboocha’s own product page says its drinks are made from those ingredients and are not pasteurized. That makes sanitation, fermentation timing and SCOBY handling the kinds of details that matter most when someone is brewing at home for the first time. Katboocha even sells a product called Kombucha 101 Instructions, a sign that the brewery is packaging hands-on know-how alongside the beverage itself.

The class also taps into a broader fermentation tradition. Peer-reviewed research describes kombucha as sweetened tea fermented by a SCOBY, with origins in China before it spread through Asia and Europe and became a global drink. A 1995 Iowa illness cluster reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a reminder that the process is not just about flavor and wellness branding. In that setting, a local workshop does the one thing a stream of online clips cannot: it puts a real brewer, real tools and a real first batch in the same room.