You + I Kombucha Review: Five Raw, Organic Brews From Glasgow
Published October 2026 · 10-minute read · by Rich, founder of Unhopped
Where these came from: You + I’s co-founder, Alan Moore, sent us a crate to try after seeing our Hip Pop coverage. We don’t earn anything from the links to You + I, and the tasting notes are mine.
I’ve always loved Hip Pop because of its Manchester connotations, but also for the fact that it doesn’t have any junk in it.
Neither does You + I. Pick up some of the bigger kombucha brands on supermarket shelves and the ingredients list gets longer. I like to read a label and recognise everything on it, the kind of ingredients my grandparents would have known and understood. Erythritol and steviol glycosides? Not so much. On that brief, You + I has nailed it, especially with its Original: simply fermented tea.
Who makes You + I kombucha?
You + I is made by Clever Kombucha Ltd, a Glasgow company run by its two founders, Alan and Kelsey Moore. They registered it in July 2017, Companies House shows, and “launched You + I in 2017 from our kitchen table”, the brand says. Its first name was Clever Kombucha, and in 2018, it says, “Independent delis and health food shops took the first cases.”
In January 2020, still as Clever Kombucha, it raised £3,200 from 50 backers on Crowdfunder as it moved into a railway arch in the Gorbals, south of the River Clyde. Arch 9 on St Luke’s Place is still where every bottle is made, the brand says, now in what it calls a “custom built brewery”. Local orders go out by bike, it says.
A few things stand out on paper:
- It’s certified organic: You + I says the Soil Association certified it in 2020.
- It’s been a certified B Corp since March 2023.
- The labels, with their line drawings of each ingredient, picked up awards in two categories at the Scottish Design Awards 2021, packaging and design craft. The design agency Freytag Anderson made them, with illustrations by Ryn Frank.
- You + I says you’ll find it in over 500 independent shops across the UK and Ireland, and on 26 October 2026 it said Ginger and Lime Sea Salt had arrived on Ocado.
We asked Alan about the kitchen-table start, the French oak and the short ingredients list in our founder interview: “A drink should be what it says on the bottle”.
What’s in a bottle
Here is the whole ingredients list from the Original bottle in our crate: filtered water, organic cane sugar, organic black tea and kombucha culture. You + I’s website lists the tea as organic whole leaf Assam. The other four flavours add one or two natural organic flavourings, such as lemon flavour and lavender oil in Lemon Lavender, and Lime Sea Salt adds smoked sea salt.
“There are no sweeteners and nothing artificial,” You + I’s FAQ says. The cane sugar is there to feed the fermentation, and the culture converts it into the acids that give kombucha its tang, You + I explains. What’s left is 2.9g of sugar per 100ml, according to the label, in every flavour.
| Per 100ml | All five flavours | Per 330ml bottle |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 48kJ / 11kcal | about 36kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 2.9g | about 9.6g |
| of which sugars | 2.9g | about 9.6g |
| Fat, protein, fibre | 0g | 0g |
| Salt | 0g (Lime Sea Salt: 0.02g) | under 0.1g |
Raw, unpasteurised and fermented with French oak
You + I says it doesn’t heat its kombucha after brewing. “Every You + I kombucha is raw and unpasteurised, and none of it is ever heat treated,” it says. It also ferments on French oak, “which is unusual for kombucha”, as You + I puts it in a blog post. Hip Pop goes the other way: its drinks are pasteurised, its FAQ says.
The labels say to store the bottles somewhere cool and dry and to serve them chilled. Once a bottle is open, keep it in the fridge and drink it within two days.
How that compares with the supermarket shelf
Take Remedy, one of the most widely stocked kombucha brands. Its Wild Berry, as listed at Morrisons, lists erythritol, as a flavour enhancer, and steviol glycosides, a sweetener from the stevia plant, and says no sugar remains after fermentation. It’s a different approach. If you’d rather your kombucha was sweetened only by the sugar the culture hasn’t used up, You + I has the shorter ingredients list.
The five You + I flavours, tasted
Every flavour starts from the same tea, sugar and culture, and they share the same calories and sugar. What changes is what goes in at the end. Here’s how they went down, with You + I’s own description of each for comparison.
| Flavour | Added to the base | In a line |
|---|---|---|
| Original | Nothing: just the fermented tea | Just fermented black tea |
| Black Cherry | Natural organic cherry flavour | A natural cherry drop |
| Ginger | Natural organic ginger flavour | Packs an absolute punch |
| Lime Sea Salt | Natural organic lime flavour and smoked sea salt | Beautifully fresh |
| Lemon Lavender | Natural organic lemon flavour and organic lavender oil | Lovely lemon, shy lavender |
You + I Original
You + I says: “Tart & tangy granny smith apples, conference pears and a hint of vanilla.”
I say: Just fermented black tea. Simply fermented tea is something I’ve not seen from any other brewer, and it’s where You + I has nailed the brief.
Original at You + I · in a mixed case of 12 for £37.50
You + I Black Cherry
You + I says: “Fresh, sweet cherry accented with hints of vanilla and oak.”
I say: Delightful. It reminds me of a natural cherry drop.
Black Cherry at You + I · in a mixed case of 12 for £37.50
You + I Ginger
You + I says: “Pungent, sweet and spicy ginger, tart apples and toasted oak.”
I say: This one packs an absolute punch. Wow, it hit me, in a good way.
Ginger at You + I · in a mixed case of 12 for £37.50
You + I Lime Sea Salt
You + I says: “Zesty lime enhanced by the minerality of the salt with a delicate hint of smoke.”
I say: Beautifully fresh. Again a great citrus flavour, balanced out by the salt, but not overpowering citrus.
Lime Sea Salt at You + I · in a mixed case of 12 for £37.50
You + I Lemon Lavender
You + I says: “Juicy home made lemonade, fresh lemon peel and delicate floral lavender.”
I say: Perhaps the one I was most excited to try beforehand, because of the lavender (how unique), but I was left a little underwhelmed. It has a delicious lemon flavour without being overly citric, but I couldn’t detect the lavender so much.
Lemon Lavender at You + I · in a mixed case of 12 for £37.50
You + I vs Hip Pop
Both are independent kombucha makers, one in Glasgow and one in Manchester, and neither uses sweeteners. The differences are in how they’re made and sold. Our Hip Pop review has more on Hip Pop.
| You + I | Hip Pop | |
|---|---|---|
| Based in | Glasgow | Manchester |
| Pack | 330ml amber glass bottle | 330ml can |
| Pasteurised? | No: raw and unpasteurised | Yes |
| Organic? | Yes, certified by the Soil Association, You + I says | Not claimed on the pages we read |
| Sweeteners | None; organic cane sugar feeds the fermentation | None (“No sweeteners, never ever”, Hip Pop says); a small amount of cane sugar feeds the fermentation |
| Sugar per 100ml | 2.9g in all five flavours | 2.3g to 2.5g in its four core kombuchas |
| Calories per 100ml | 11kcal | 10 to 16kcal |
| Alcohol | “Trace amounts”; no figure given | Under 0.1%, Hip Pop says |
| A case of 12 | £37.50, delivered free to mainland UK | £20, plus £4 to £5 delivery under £45 |
Hip Pop is the cheaper can for every day, and our Hip Pop discount codes make it cheaper still. You + I costs more, comes in glass, and is raw and organic.
Where to buy You + I kombucha
The simplest way is You + I’s own shop, where you build a case of 12 bottles from any of the five flavours for £37.50, with free delivery to mainland UK in one to three working days. A monthly subscription takes 10% off. When we checked on 27 October 2026, the shop listed:
- Kombucha Case: any 12 bottles, £37.50
- Discovery Case: six kombuchas and six of its botanical teas, £35
- Gift cards: from £10
Other shops sell single bottles for a little less. On 27 October 2026, Abel & Cole had Black Cherry and Lime Sea Salt at £2.95 a bottle, and The Wine Society had Lime Sea Salt at £2.95, or £35 for 12. On 26 October 2026, You + I said Ginger and Lime Sea Salt had arrived on Ocado; we couldn’t find the listings yet.
On tap, and in the wild
In a handful of places you can have it on tap, poured from kegs into refillable bottles or glasses. When we checked on 27 October 2026, You + I listed Locavore in Glasgow (Govanhill and Partick), Soul Food Kitchen in Finnieston, The Refillery in Edinburgh, The Mart in East Linton and the Functional Drinks Club in Otley.
And by chance, on 27 October 2026, I spotted it on the menu at Funky Monkey Coffee Company on Bramhall Lane in Davenport, Stockport: four flavours at £5.50. If you’re near Stockport and want to try one before buying a case, it’s worth asking there.
How to serve it
Chilled, and in a glass: the amber bottles hide a pale gold drink. Keep them somewhere cool and dry until you need them, then chill them; once a bottle is open, the label says to keep it in the fridge and finish it within two days.
Kombucha makes a very good second drink of the evening alongside alcohol-free beer. Lime Sea Salt is in our Christmas dinner guide as the pick for anyone at the table who doesn’t want beer, and a mixed case is in our alcohol-free gift guide.
The verdict
You + I does what I want from a kombucha: a short ingredient list I recognise, and no sweeteners. Black Cherry and Lime Sea Salt are the easiest to love, Ginger is for anyone who likes a kick, and Lemon Lavender is a lovely lemon drink whose lavender is shy. And the Original is the bottle that sums the brand up: simply fermented tea.
At £37.50 for a case of 12 it costs more than Hip Pop; what you get is a raw, organic kombucha in glass from a small Glasgow brewery. Build a case at You + I, or see our Hip Pop review if you’d like a can for every day.