Microbial diversity of kombucha

In the most comprehensive study of kombucha microbial diversity to date, a team of scientists recently uncovered new microbial dimensions of this popular fermented tea. In this Science Digested, I provide a summary of what you need to know from this exciting new work and how it may change our understanding of how kombucha is produced.

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Surveying cheese rind microbial diversity

What happens when you collect 137 cheeses from around the world and sequence their DNA? You end up eating a ton of cheese. But more importantly, you learn a lot about what bacteria and fungi live in a typical cheese rind, that sea salt may be a previously unrecognized source of cheese microbes, and whether the notion of ‘microbial terroir’ holds up in artisan cheeses. In this Science Digested, I provide a digested version of recent research that used new DNA-sequencing approaches to broadly survey the microbial diversity of artisan cheese rinds.

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Biodiversity of the bacterial flora on the surface of a smear cheese

Brennan et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 2002, 68(2): 820-830. What organisms grow on the surface of a semi-soft, pasteurized washed rind cheese during the course of its development? How does inoculation with a commercial strain of Brevibacterium linens affect the development of the rind microbial community? This paper sheds some light on these very pertinent questions.  [click to view the full story]