Jay McGee and Kellie Hughes Jordan of Owl Spoon Water Kefir
Ask Kellie Hughes Jordan about ferments, and she gets almost giddy with excitement. Jordan, manager and master brewer for Owl Spoon Water Kefir Co., declares the product she crafts to be kombucha’s cooler cousin and the gut-healthy, unprocessed probiotic the beverage of the future.
“Lot of ferments are pretty funky and an acquired taste; this doesn’t have that,” says Jordan, a former kraut maker and kombucha brewer before joining Owl Spoon two years ago. “Water kefir is a gateway drug to introducing people to a [healthier] lifestyle of having more fermented foods in their diet. I always say, you don’t have to hold the counter while you’re drinking it, no pep talk involved. I call it a fizzy, probiotic soda.”
When we think of drinkable ferments, kombucha often comes to mind. The beverage has become a mainstream gut-healthy drink of choice; it’s readily available, and there’s even boozy spiked versions on the market as well. Another option is dairy kefir, the slightly sour, tangy, fermented drinkable yogurt. But while ferments are often marked by their cheek-puckering qualities or acidic notes, water kefir is different.
“It’s a probiotic that doesn’t taste like a funky fermented drink; it’s pretty straightforward,” Owl Spoon Water Kefir founder Jay McGee says. “Kombucha has taken up the entire category of fermented probiotic beverages. It’s taken up all our brain space.”
Recently, Owl Spoon has been gaining momentum and attracting an audience with its more subtle, but equally potent, probiotic benefits. While Jordan may be considered the fermentation authority behind the operation, McGee is the health-forward leader with a fascination for food history. With a background in linguistics and anthropology, he views ferments as a timeless, cross-cultural culinary tradition.
“The human experience has always [included] fermented stuff, the foundation of cultures everywhere for all time,” McGee says. “I kind of got really into the thought of ‘Here’s this thing that helps me feel more human.’ What a human thing to do, to drink fermented stuff.”
A few years ago, when looking to introduce a healthy beverage to his kids, McGee began experimenting with making kefir in his kitchen. “I was making water kefir at home, mostly for my kids, and wanting a good immunity booster and a drink that wasn’t sugary but was fun,” he says. “Then it became [something I made for] friends, then I was throwing a cooler on my front porch and people were slipping a $5 bill under the mat.”
In 2019, McGee launched Owl Spoon Water Kefir. Brewed with organic ingredients, flavors range from hibiscus-tea to the bestselling tangerine-mango. Effervescent with a smidge of sweetness, the fermented water is chock-full of living cultures, enzymes and electrolytes.
Although water kefir is on the rise, Jordan and McGee still say they spend many of their face-to-face interactions at local markets explaining the power of probiotics. “Every week usually; it may be people’s first experience with water kefir, and the process is, more than anything else, explaining probiotics to people,” Jordan says. “They know the word and that it’s good, but they’re not sure what it will do for them.”
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Owl Spoon makes weekly appearances at the Birdhouse Farmers Market, RVA Big Market and the Farmers Market at St. Stephen’s.
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Owl Spoon has recycled nearly 5,000 glass bottles through its bottle-return program.
My dream for a long time has been to show people how easy it can be to begin the path to making better choices for your gut health.”
—Kellie Hughes Jordan, manager and master brewer, Owl Spoon Water Kefir
Naturally dairy- and gluten-free, water kefir is something people can weave into a daily routine, Jordan explains. It can serve as a replenishing recovery drink following exercise, a mixer in a cocktail or a healthy addition to sparkling water. “That’s the thing about water kefir, it’s not offensive in any way, it’s super chill. It’s like a chameleon, you can have it be any thing you need it to be,” she says.
While kombucha is an acidic ferment with a vinegary zing, water kefir is a lactic acid with a lightly fruity, refreshing flavor. The culture for water kefir forms on pads of the opuntia cactus and resembles small crystals with a texture similar to boba.
At Owl Spoon, after the water is filtered through a Berkey system, the mineral-heavy water and cultures are brewed with organic cane and coconut sugars and pink Himalayan salt. (Kombucha, on the other hand, is brewed in black or green tea.) No sugar is added after the fermentation process for water kefir, which means all the sugars in the beverage are fermented, making it easier for the body to digest. Compared to kombucha, the fermentation process for water kefir is also much shorter.
Owl Spoon Water Kefir is sold in 32-ounce glass bottles, as well as a 12-ounce size meant to offer curious consumers a chance to try the beverage without the commitment.
“I think water kefir will be exploding as a thing,” McGee says. “I think five years from now, it will be like kombucha — nobody knew what it was, but now it’s exploded. The product is poised to do really well in the market, and [I] would love to get our foot in the door as one of the first brands on the East Coast.”
McGee and Jordan hope to see Owl Spoon Water Kefir in more stores throughout the state and beyond. They have been amping up production and preparing to potentially partner with larger wholesale clients. At the most recent Fancy Foods show, nonalcoholic cocktail culture and ferments for functions were two of the top trends predicted for the year, and Owl Spoon Water Kefir checks both boxes.
“My dream for a long time has been to show people how easy it can be to begin the path to making better choices for your gut health,” Jordan says. “Moving forward, we want to just keep spreading the message of taking good care of yourself and how it can be easy and fun to do that.”
