Maggiethecartoonist sent this in.
Per Wikipedia, “Kombucha is a fermented, lightly effervescent, sweetened black tea drink commonly consumed for its purported health benefits. Sometimes the beverage is called kombucha tea to distinguish it from the culture of bacteria and yeast. Juice, spices, fruit or other flavorings are often added.”
Who’s on the other side of this war? Is this one of those Culture Wars that’s been in the news so much lately?
Comics I Don't Understand 
My wife was one of those who drank Kombucha for several years. Like the soda wars (Coke and Pepsi), this is the war between different brands and microbrewery (yeasteries?) of kombucha.
Why are the riders “bottled”? I think it would have made more sense to depict them as tea bags, with the rectangular tabs at the end of the string as their shields.
For this to be a joke, I would expect “Kombucha Wars” to be a pun. But I can’t think of anything that would fit.
The ONLY thing I can make of this is some sort of vague, un-PC “heh heh, ‘Kombucha’ sounds like one o’ them Chinee dynasty things, let’s laugh at it”. I don’t consider myself Mr. PC, but even to me, if that’s the joke, it’s dumb.
I have heard of a controversy, if not a war, between Kombucha makers and the Powers That Be. The fermentation process produces alcohol, but if the product contains more than 0.5% alcohol by volume it cannot be sold except under the restrictions, tax, and licensing regimes applicable to alcoholic beverages. As I heard it, the Kombucha producers are asking for a limit of 1.5% which would apparently be easier and perhaps cheaper to comply with.
While yeast can certainly be part of a kombucha culture, my understanding was that the main organisms in kombucha are bacteria: though maybe to get the distinctive mother “mushroom”, you do need the yeast… I’ve just looked at the cultures in two bottles I have: the kombucha has Bacillus Coagulans, S. Boulardii (a yeast), and Lactobacillus Bacterium, whereas the “aqua kefir” just has the two bacteria without the yeast. Hmm… when I was making kombucha, the damn mother would grow and grow and grow, and become a night mare to manage, despite my efforts to keep it minimal, and I’d end up with more kombucha than I could realistically consume before I needed to harvest the latest batch; when I started a culture using the “aqua kefir” as a starter, it never grew a mother, and was and has been much more manageable — I use plop-top 750ml bottles: what I do is I don’t wash it out when I finish one, I just pour in new fruit juice (I use 100% juice apple juices and cranberry juices) and let it ferment on the counter for about 6 hours (either closed or open) before putting it closed in the fridge; works a treat.
So I’m leaning to “culture war”, but yeah, it doesn’t really work…
@Kirby
Kombucha has to be fermented or brewed (as you can see from @larK’s post), so it doesn’t come in tea bags.
I’ve heard of, and even tried, kombucha, but I don’t get the pun.
Ooten Aboot: That would at least make a bit of sense: “There’s this term ‘Kombucha wars’: what if it were a real war? What would that look like?” and if you’re a cartoonist on a daily death march, I suspect your threshold for ideas is a lot lower than you’d prefer.
Kilby – Kombucha is always bottled, it’s not just tea leaves (it requires the fermentation LarK described), so tea bags would be an even less appropriate image.
I’ve heard of water (aqua) kefir (as well as the usual milk kefir), never heard it described as a type of kombucha. Interesting! And yes, every quick explanation of kombucha I’ve run into starts with “fermented with a culture of bacteria and yeast”…
I actually don’t dare drink kombucha because I’m allergic (technically “intolerant” – like lactose intolerance) to alcohol, and even the .05% is enough for me to react. Which annoys me because it sounds very interesting, both to make and to drink.
Since the fermentation involves a culture, we can understand kombucha wars as a specific narrowed instance of culture wars, indeed!
@ ShadZ (7) @ jjmcgaffey (10) – My primary objection to the bottle is the clumsy label. If it’s “tea”, then the bags would be more artistic. If they contain kombucha, then they should not be labeled “tea”.
Even after all the valiant efforts, I must admit I am none the wiser. With most CIDUs that I don’t get at first, I understand commenters’ explanations even if I still don’t find the cartoon funny.
If this cartoon is about Culture Wars, wouldn’t some sort of battle between yoghurt and kombucha have made more sense?
This post https://thecontentedkitchen.com/2016/09/10/kombucha-wars/ is titled Kombucha Wars but seems to be only about someone having a go at dealing with kombucha but being defeated by the slimy scobies that emerge.
I’d not be at all surprised were I to learn that some swivel-eyed RWLs had decided to attack kombucha drinkers, lumping them into the same class as tofu eaters, who, as we (sorry, they) all know are radical liberals who wear sandals, have beards, and will if not checked bring about the end of civilisation as they would like it to be.