Founder Interview: Maren Aasen & Luca Guichard, Founders of Surf Kombucha

Describe your product in one sentence and tell us about your brand.

We make Surf Kombucha, a light, fresh and bubbly Kombucha from Norway. We have four flavours: raspberry, mango, lime and tropical ginger. We also have a new one coming out in September and one Christmas edition that we´re excited to brew again! When we choose tea, flavours and our way of brewing, we always go for a light Kombucha taste in the hope that most people will like it. We´re also thriving for the most possible organic ingredients.

What‘s your story and how did you get started?

Maren grew up on a farm in Norway. When studying nutrition, she learned about the importance of a healthy gut and digestion, as well as about fermented foods and drinks and got to taste Kombucha for the first time. Luca grew up in Portugal with a Norwegian mom and French dad and has been working as a sponsored surfer since he was 15 years old. When travelling together to California for the first time in 2015, we descovered how popular Kombucha was there and fell in love with the taste. We wanted more of this in Norway (!!) and that´s how it all started. Later, we travelled to NYC and Hawaii to learn more about how to brew at larger scale since there was no one in Norway we could go visit and learn from.

What‘s your current stage?

We were one of the first ones starting a Kombucha brewery in Norway in 2016 and are now selling in over 200 shops, cafés, restaurants and hotels in the whole country. We have our own brewery here in the countryside in Norway. Our dream is to bring Surf Kombucha to Portugal where Luca grew up and maybe to some other countries in Europe. We both work 100% for Surf Kombucha, but right now our time is a bit limited since we also have to be at home taking care of our 9 months old baby boy, Noah. Busy days, but we love being our own bosses and to have a flexible work schedule.

What excites you most about Kombucha and its future?

When we started three years ago, almost no one knew what Kombucha was. Now, we can go to a normal grocery store and get Kombucha, even though it is still quite an unknown product. It's definitely spreading out though. Kombucha is a great alternative to alcohol and sugary drinks. People want that and the market needs more alternatives. That´s exciting to be a part of. We´re also hoping to be part of a research project this winter to get more knowledge about what culture, in terms of bacteria, yeast etc. our Kombucha actually contains.

What are your expectations in attending the Kombucha Summit?

We´ve been wanting to go to the conference in California, but it never fit our schedule and it´s so far away. It's really awesome, that a Kombucha event is now happening in Europe! We´re really excited to meet other Kombucha brewers, get some new contacts, see other breweries and hopefully get some answers on what's going on in the world of research.

Thanks, Maren and Luca for the interview! You keep reading — we keep posting more interviews from the exciting world of Kombucha!

For those of you interested in participating in October: You can purchase tickets here and in case you have any questions, comments or suggestions, ping us any time at info@kombuchasummit.com or on Instagram.