Launching of Kombucha Brewery and Herb Shoppe

 
Komorebi has had the honor to serve kombucha to Naples, Canandaigua, and the surrounding area for the past year operating out of Roots Cafe, with cold storage at Jeni's Kitchen. Mandy Gorton (owner of Roots Cafe) has been extremely generous in letting us take over an upstairs room, in an already crowded restaurant setting. This would not have been possible for us with out this space. We are ready to give her the space back and make one of our own. This will allow us to streamline the process, for a far more efficient work flow. We signed a lease for a wonderful spot on Mill Street, just off of Main, less than two months before the pandemic took over. We had hopes of running a crowdfunding campaign the month of April, to transition a new space into a certified kitchen and tasting room for our kombucha and expanding herbal apothecary. With recent devastation on the economy and personal incomes, it is hard to ask for financial support, but we are still in need of start up capital to make this happen.

Kitchen projects, kombucha, and herbalism have been a combined passion of Scott and Desiree.  After many years of home brewing kombucha, and positive feedback, we decided to start sharing it with others. In the summer of 2018, we collected and reused commercial kombucha bottles, applied a homemade sticker, and filled them with our tasty home brews. Komorebi was born! We sold some to friends, but mostly traded for produce and other local goods.

Komorebi was officially launched in May of 2019, with the intent of making deliciously crafted kombucha in small batches. We got inspected, certified, and upgraded our wares and brewing equipment. Little by little. As we have grown over the past year, our mission has remained, but the demand has grown. We feel blessed to have had the support system we needed to get started, but we have outgrown our current location and set up. We have worked tirelessly every night after working our other jobs to make our passion come alive. With your help we can have a location we can call our own. This will allow us to expand our production and streamline our operation. A tasting room and herbal apothecary will be available for visitation! 

Along with our hopes to continue providing the community with kombucha, we would also like to incorporate our passion in herbalism. With multiple years of experience in growing, harvesting, drying, and processing medicinal herbs, we would like to incorporate that loving wisdom into the future of our business by providing organically grown, locally sourced, and/or wildcrafted plant medicine. We have already begun much work on a large and beautiful garden space with the help of our friend, Noah Earl. We call it Nico's Hope Garden after his daughter.

Our new location is on Mill Street, just off of Main Street in the heart of the Naples Valley. A lovely spot indeed! Though perfect for us, it is not set up to run as a certified kitchen and tasting room. We are in need of start up capitol to convert it. We will use the money to run drainage and water lines. Also, we are in need of equipment such as a cooler, stainless steel tables, water filtration system, shelving, a three bay sink, hand washing sink, tap system, and heating range. Rent, legal fees, and plenty of other little costs add up quickly as well!

Your contributions would help us to purchase the equipment we need to have a certified kitchen, support our organic garden, and make loving and healing medicine and food for the people.

We feel this would be a unique and enjoyable operation in our town for all ages. We aim to provide for our community in the healthiest of ways! We believe in a symbiotic relationship with the Naples community and ourselves.

Please consider supporting us and the growth of Komorebi!

Everyone who donates will be entered into a drawing to win a growler of kombucha and an herbal gift basket.

Peace and love, 

Desiree Collister and Scott Calpin

Owners and founders of Komorebi

Komorebi (koh-mor-ah-bee) (Japanese): Sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees.