On a quiet hillside of Blue Sky Utah’s sprawling property, Kabian Newson tends to something alive. Actually, two somethings on two hillsides: one home to a few colonies of bees, the other, a SCOBY, or symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast.
For Newson — a Lodge at Blue Sky, Auberge Resorts employee whose background merges sustainable living, microbiology and a dash of mysticism or “woo” — both are equally important components to brewing jun kombucha, a green-tea-and-honey-based probiotic beverage that quickly became a passion project.
He operates the brewing out of a corner of the support kitchen across from the Blue Sky event barn. It’s a gleaming collection of metal tubs and tubes looking equal parts culinary and science lab: a fitting depiction of the jun kombucha process underway.
While the brewing started as a crime of opportunity — abandoned bee hives and a rarely used kitchen practically begging for attention — Newson’s jun kombucha is now a highly sought-after refresher. It’s become the Lodge’s welcome drink for guests, a regular beverage pairing at Gracie’s Farm dinners, and now sold by request to those lucky to be in the know.
Newson’s background with kombucha helped transform the small hobby to a regular fixture at Blue Sky.
Before arriving at Blue Sky, Newson founded a small kombucha business called Rock Canyon Elixirs, crafting naturally fermented teas and distributing them. But the business folded when the pandemic hit. What survived, though, was his starter culture, the SCOBY that still ferments every batch of his jun today.
That SCOBY, jokingly named “Scoby Wan Kenobi,” is extra special for Newson because of how it started. Newson was inspired by the ancient Japanese sake tradition of catching wild microbes from the air into the first brew batch. A hippie at heart, he set out to do the same.
“You leave your wort out to cool, and as it cools, it gets inoculated with whatever’s floating on the air,” he explained. “I heard about this, and so, to start my culture, I took two of my favorite lineages of jun kombucha, mixed them together, put that with some fresh wort in a tree, full moon, my favorite canyon, and then prayed to the yeast gods to bless it up. And that’s how I started this culture, and I’m still working with the same one.”
The culture is just one piece of the brewing puzzle. Newson puts the same amount of intentionality into all the brewing steps. First, he brews a large pot of tea — his base is always green tea — with water at 180 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent the tea from scorching. Then it’s cooled to at least 120 degrees, ideally “milk warm” or body temperature, and sweetened with honey instead of sugar. Then, after cooling again to 80 degrees and checking the pH, the SCOBY is added to the brew in a large pot, covered with a cloth and left to ferment at room temperature, converting the sweet tea into a lightly effervescent, tangy elixir over several days.
The use of honey instead of cane sugar is what distinguishes jun kombucha from traditional kombucha, both in flavor and fermentation time, Newson said..
“I don’t know how I came across jun,” Newson said. “When I learned about it, I was instantly like, OK, honey and green tea is clearly better than black tea and sugar, and that’s the big difference.”
The fermentation is fast: three to seven days, compared to month-long ferments for traditional kombucha. And the result is a gentler, more balanced drink that appeals to most palates.
“I try to get rid of most of the sugar but not go to vinegar — find that tension between the sweet and the sour,” he said.
Each bottle contains about 9 grams of sugar per 12 ounces, less than a quarter of what’s in a soda, and the use of honey has added health benefits, Newson explained. As a complex sugar, it contains antioxidants and has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties.
Most of the batches Newson produces in the summertime use not just any honey: those harvested from his own apiaries on the Blue Sky property, abandoned hives he restocked with bees from Salt Lake.
He’s now in his second year of managing the hives, meaning the bees are still ramping up honey production, so he doesn’t have enough to use in every batch — yet.
“It usually takes a little bit for them to get established. And we had a complete disaster last season. Last year was the worst year for bees on record. Depending on where you lived, people were losing 60 to 80% of their colonies,” Newson said.
The causes of last year’s catastrophe, he said, were widespread. There was Colony Collapse Disorder, pesticides, the varroa mite, industrial pollination practices and increasingly erratic weather patterns tied to climate change. Still, he’s patient, planning to boost numbers with more disease-tolerant varieties.
Just like Newson worked with the resources available on Blue Sky for the bees, he’s also conscious of making kombucha flavors as highly localized as possible.
For example, he crafted an elderflower-hawthorn-chokecherry kombucha brewed late summer made with berries 100% foraged on the property — selected for the subtle flavors, tannic properties and vibrant colors. A strawberry-basil batch used strawberries and basil grown on a small farm in the Salt Lake Valley. He even made a tomato kombucha for a Gracie’s Farm dinner with cherry tomatoes from the small, women-led market garden.
“Usually I like to incorporate a fruit and an herb and a root, something earthy, so we get all the notes,” he said. “I do super small batch. I try to forage or get straight from the farm. Most of the stuff I pick because then I can guarantee you that it is the dopest, freshest thing.”
Newson explained his philosophy on foraging, referencing the book “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
“(In the book she explains that) the name for berries has the word gift in it,” he said. “So she talks about how it’s the gift of the plant and how it comes with an obligation. You’re given a gift that inspires generosity: You want to pay it forward or do something in return. I think that’s so beautiful.”
His gift is the kombucha, and he experiments constantly, influenced by the work of chef René Redzepi of Copenhagen’s world-renowned restaurant Noma.
“He’s one of my inspirations,” Newson said, “because he’s just so passionate about food and place, and he forages a lot of his stuff. His fermentation book is brilliant.”
At Noma, chefs use liquid nitrogen to flash-freeze botanicals and achieve maximum extraction.
“They flash freeze their botanicals and then shatter them,” Newson explained. “I don’t have liquid nitrogen here, but I do have a blast chiller, and so I freeze it down to negative 30 degrees, and then I infuse it that way, which is the best I can do.”
This method, he said, helps preserve delicate aromatics, especially in ingredients like elderflower, creating a depth of flavor that’s vibrant yet balanced.
“A lot of people tell me it’s the best kombucha they’ve ever had,” he said. “And I hear that a lot, so I kind of believe it.”
Newson, originally from Provo, learned a lot of the foundational knowledge for kombucha brewing while attending Maharishi International University in Iowa.
“I did a dual degree in sustainable living and soil science, and so that’s where a lot of my microbiology knowledge came from. And also, there was a beekeeper who I did a mentorship with,” he said.
Before adding the brewed tea and honey to the SCOBY, Newson checks the pH balance because if it’s too high, there’s a greater risk of harmful microorganisms. Before bottling the kombucha, he’ll test the pH again to ensure it’s at the right stage of fermentation. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record 
Kabian Newson uses a refractometer to measure the moisture content of honey harvested from his bees at Blue Sky Utah. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
That foundation gave him the scientific grounding to understand fermentation at a molecular level, but his process also embraces creativity and intuition, he said. He describes his style as a blend of the “super-geeky molecular” and the intuitive, a balance that informs not only his kombucha-making but all aspects of his life.
Newson explained the last step in the initial brewing process is to say a mantra of Lakshmi, a principal Hindu goddess of the house, home, wealth and health, over the vat of booch.
“I’m pretty woo, but I’m also science woo,” he said.
Beyond brewing, Newson leads kombucha-making classes and honey tastings for guests who want to understand the process.
“I’m more of a teacher by nature,” he said. “Like, show and tell was my favorite subject in school. I like to talk about things that I like.”
For now, his jun is made in small batches and sold only to the Lodge, a community supported agriculture program, friends and family. But going forward, he envisions scaling up just enough to reach local markets and boutiques while maintaining his hands-on approach.
“That’s pretty much all that I can handle right now with a full-time job, but next year, I’m looking to go more pro,” he said. “I’ve thought about approaching different CSAs and being like, ‘Hey, I want to take your product and make a value-added thing for you to sell to your members.’ I think that would be really fun for everybody.”
He’s even experimenting with ways to create an alcoholic version of his jun, a frontier in the state that would open up new markets, too.
Going into winter, Newson is “tucking in” the bees for the season, when they’ll burrow deep in their hives to stay warm and eat the honey they’ve stored for the long months.
Experiences will return in April, but Newson will continue to brew and experiment with new flavors and approaches, like a wassail for the fall made from Wanship apples using jun culture instead of apple cider vinegar.
His biggest undertaking of all, Newson is working to formally start a business at BeeDaddyKB.com, where people can follow his process and snag some brew.