The “In the Lou” Food Tour is one of the highlights of Fall Welcome for our first-year students. It introduces them to the neighborhoods around the Danforth campus giving them new ideas of places to go to for local and delicious food. In my last blog post, you can read about our stop at Sameem Afghan Restaurant in The Grove. After visiting Sameem Afghan, we ventured around the neighborhood popping into a handful of locations, including Confluence Kombucha.
Confluence Kombucha offers eight unique flavors on tap each week. Their kombucha includes fresh and foraged ingredients that are glass fermented for about a month at a time. Their drinks can be taken to go – in three different size options of 16 ounces, 32 ounces and 64 ounces – or can be tasted in house by ordering a 10 ounce vessel or a full flight featuring three ounce samples of each brew. They also sell packaged provisions (like kimchi, flax seeds, yogurt, etc.) and host food tastings by reservation.
The dining room is quaint with a few booths and tables lining a wall of windows. The countertop is filled with interesting finds, many of which are ingredients they use in their brews. Bright and beautiful artwork adorn the walls giving the place a peaceful and warm atmosphere.
Chancellor Martin and I were thrilled to make this stop because students learned more about the kombuchery and their processes used for brewing. They’re constantly fermenting and produce 10-15 kegs per week! The offerings on tap change based on what their current brews are. Here is a list of the ones that were available during our visit:
- Lapsang Souchong: Pine smoked black tea from China that had smoky hints to it.
- GenMaiCha: A Japanese green tea with toasted and puffed rice. This one is sweet when brewing it, but loses some of that sweetness after the fermentation is done.
- Jun & Clary Sage- Contains clary sage from Black Rat Farms in St. Louis and uses honey in the place of sugar during the brewing stage. This one had floral and herbal notes with some citrus flavors to it.
- Chaga Coconut- Coconut black tea with chaga. Chaga is a medicinal mushroom that has more antioxidants than any other consumable thing that is known of.
- Huitlachoche- A fungus that grows on corn and tastes a little like corn itself.
- Jun Mahlab- Contains cherry seeds that are honey fermented instead of using sugar. It has an almond marzipan flavor.
- Fresh Corn- Coblux with notes of sweetness that reminded us of summer.
- Salted Peach/Almond Orgeat/Cacao- Contains scraps from Platypus, the cocktail bar next door to Confluence Kombucha. This was the sweetest one on tap during our visit and had hints of a Butterfinger candy bar in it.
As Parent & Family Weekend approaches and you’re looking for somewhere different and exciting to take your family, check out Confluence Kombucha! It’s a fun experience to try with your family or group of friends. They’re open Wednesday-Saturday 11 a.m.- 7 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m.-4 p.m. and are closed Monday-Tuesday.
Confluence Kombucha
4507 Manchester Avenue
St. Louis MO
Photos from our visit
