By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-11 04:13:36 | Updated at 2025-01-11 06:58:51
2 hours ago
The laboratory at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s department of chemistry is filled with the rich aroma of tea as Professor Ngai To and his students get down to work.
They produce copious quantities of kombucha, the fizzy, fermented drink made from sweetened black tea which has become popular with claims of health benefits.
But the team’s focus is not on the trendy drink itself or concocting new flavours.
Ngai and his students hope an essential ingredient for brewing kombucha can create a new environmentally friendly material to replace plastic food packaging and even natural leather.
Kombucha is made by fermenting tea and sugar with bacteria and yeast, a days-long process that uses a pancake-shaped gelatinous mass called “Scoby” – which stands for “symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast”.
The team has used that to produce bacterial cellulose, a type of polymer that can be used as a biodegradable packaging material that disintegrates in soil within three to five months.
