Here is a little about Kombucha:
The recorded history of kombucha began in Russia around the late 19th century. In Russian, the kombucha culture is called čajnyj grib чайный гриб (lit. "tea mushroom"), and the drink itself is called grib гриб ("mushroom"), "tea kvass" квас, or simply kvass, which differs from regular kvass traditionally made from water and stale rye bread.
In Chinese, kombucha is called hongchajun 红茶菌 (lit. "red tea fungus/mushroom"), hongchagu 红茶菇 ("red tea mushroom"), or chameijun 茶霉菌 ("tea mold"). In Japanese, the kombucha drink is known as "kōcha kinoko" 紅茶キノコ (lit. "red tea mushroom"). Both the Chinese and Japanese names incorporate the characters for hongcha or kōcha (literally, "red tea") referring to what is known in the West as black tea.
Japanese kombu 昆布 "a Laminaria kelp; sea tangle" is dried and powdered to produce a beverage called kombucha (literally "kelp tea"). The English kombucha fermented tea is pronounced similarly, and is confused with the Japanese kombucha seaweed tea.
Some kombucha promotional sources propagate myths that this tea-based beverage originated in ancient China or Japan, but neither Chinese nor Japanese historical texts are known to mention kombucha. One author claims it originated in China, supposedly known as the "Godly Tsche [i.e., tea] … a beverage with magical powers enabling people to live forever" during the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE). However, the recorded history of tea in China began during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). Another author purports kombucha originated in Japan, etymologically from "a Korean doctor named Kombu [who] treated the Japanese Emperor Ingyō in 415 A.D." The early Japanese history Kojiki does mention an envoy from the early Korean state Silla who was "deeply versed in the medical art" and cured the Emperor's sickness – but his name was 金武, which is pronounced in Korean Kim/Gim Mu, or in Japanese Kin/Kon Mu. However, the history of tea in Japan definitively records tea was first imported from China in 806.
