What probiotics do you use?
We use a proprietary blend, including L. acidophilus, L. paracasei, L. rhamnosus and B. Lactis.
What is the shelf life?
It's 60 days refrigerated. Once it's been opened, you should drink it within seven days.
Is it a raw product?
As most people know, cashews are steamed in order to remove the outer shells. This applies to essentially the entire global cashew supply, including organic "raw" cashews, which we use. A tiny percentage (less than .001%) of cashews are not steamed, but they're very costly, and there just aren't enough of them.
What are the tiny dark-colored particles I sometimes see in the bottle?
The removal of the cashew inner pericarp, a kind of skin that surrounds the kernel, is part art and part science. Occasionally, when it's being peeled off by the cashew supplier, a small patch of it remains on the kernel. If you look at raw cashews closely, here and there you'll see a cashew with an unpeeled patch. That's what you're seeing in the beverage.
The raspberry flavor says it has one gram of sugar per serving.
Why is that?
Because raspberries have naturally-occurring sugar.
Do you have more flavors?
Yes, we've identified at least a dozen more flavor possibilites. In time, they may see the light of day. For now, we offer four flavors: ginger, lime, cinnamon, and raspberry.
Why do you use stevia as a sweetener?
We use organic stevia because it balances the tart flavor of the fermented cashew water. Stevia has zero calories and seems to us a much better choice than a caloric sweetener like sugar. One of our primary goals, after all, is to eliminate processed sugar without sacrificing deliciousness.
What are some of the other differences between your beverage and other fermented beverages?
Because we don't use yeast in our culture, neither alcohol nor CO2 are produced to any meaningful degree. Thus, unlike kombucha, cultured cashew water is not effervescent. It's less acidic, and virtually free of alcohol. Also, we don't use so-called "natural" flavors. Few people understand what the term "natural flavors" means, what category of ingredients it refers to, or how they're produced. If they see the word "natural" on an ingredient label, they assume it must be okay. They also assume that if the word "flavor" appears on a label, preceded by a word connoting a fruit, that it too must be natural. A few examples: coconut flavor, pineapple flavor, blueberry flavor, and our personal favorite, mojito flavor. If anyone can explain to us what these substances are, we'd like to know. We spent a fair amount of time playing around with "natural" flavors but they don't taste as good as actual fruit or plant extracts, plus we just can't figure out what they are. For those reasons, we don't use them.