Our Story
It took many cups of strong chai and deep camaraderie for four Kolkata-based friends—Sonali Sonpal, Shilpa Soni, Jagruti Shah, and Smita Agarwal—to brew a kombucha business in the city. Once they set forth, there was no looking back.
In 2007, the four women, strangers until then, attended a women’s financial freedom workshop in Kolkata, where they quickly connected and remained steadfast friends, united by their responsibilities of managing home, children, family businesses, and more.
Fast forward 15 years, the friends have turned entrepreneurs with Calbrew Kombucha, which brews the fermented, lightly effervescent, sweetened black tea drink commonly consumed for its purported health benefits.
The brand is a firm favourite in Kolkata and is available at Craft Coffee, The Bhawanipur house, Sabeki, The Club Shop (Saturday Club), The Gourmet Outlet, Fresh Aisle, Fresh Aisle café, Hedonne. Wellness expert Luke Coutinho has featured Calbrew Kombucha on his health food website.
The concept of Kombucha was relatively unknown to us until our friend Sonali told us about it. Her son, who was visiting from the US, introduced this to his mother, who started making kombucha at home with different flavours.
During a holiday in Varanasi in 2020, Sonali broached the topic of starting a venture together to make and sell kombuchas. Incidentally, all four women were contributing to their respective family businesses in some form and, over time, had grown to understand that carving a niche for themselves was important for them.
They started by experimenting with different flavours of kombucha, brewing it at Sonali’s home, bottling it, and distributing it to friends and family.
The demand quickly caught pace, and the quartet were forced to look for a rented place to use as a manufacturing and bottling unit. They soon named their venture Calbrew Kombucha and registered the company in 2021.
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