Localfolk caught up with Empress, Oslo’s fermentation enthusiasts, on a wintry Monday morning. What followed was an hour of vibrant conversation that covered everything from smuggling scoby out of Mexico to ideas for alcohol-free sparkling ‘alt-wines’. Of course, it took a deep dive into the alchemy of fermentation and the joy of foraging and designing gut-healthy natural flavours too.

Christer and Anna’s joyous approach to their booming start-up is infectious, and it isn’t hard to understand why their products have captured the attention of an ever-growing customer base.

“We discovered kombucha while on holiday in Cabo, Mexico,” Anna Karenina explains. “For me, there was a real ‘wow’ moment from that first sip. We’re passionate foodies and had been looking to start our own business in Oslo for some time. We’d considered opening a restaurant, but after talking to Vanessa who makes kombucha at her own microbrewery in Cabo, it was clear that our future lay in fermentation.”

Christer, in his words the “systematic one” of the partnership, goes on to explain how that first encounter sowed the seeds of what would quickly become Empress, the non-alcoholic brewery.

“The first batches weren’t great, but the process was exciting enough for us to persevere. We went from a few litres being made in our living room to having three 120 litre tanks, turning our living room into a small microbrewery—and the results just got better and better.”

Kombucha, the fizzy fermented drink made from a blend of tea, natural flavours, and ‘scoby’ (an acronym for Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeasts), is growing in popularity with health-conscious millennial and younger audiences worldwide, and yet is only just breaking through on the Norwegian scene.

The success of Empress, however, proves just how ready the local and national audience is for the product—and demand has only increased over the past couple of years. Anna’s background in design shines through their labelling and pitch-perfect social media presence, but also in the way each Empress product is meticulously crafted, the result of endless experimentation and discovery.

“We started by making kombucha primarily for ourselves, for its health benefits and invigorating flavour,” Anna tells us. “Christer and I were big yogis—although we have little time for anything other than Empress now—and we started sharing our creations with our friends, family and our yoga community who were incredibly enthusiastic about our holistic-minded products and gut-healthy ferments.”

But once it was clear that Empress kombucha had a clear audience, Christer and Anna Karenina dedicated themselves to finding the optimal blends of teas and flavour experimentations. Their dizzying combination of crafted black and green tea blends, for example, sets Empress apart from other kombucha brands, which primarily use more tannic, darker, and bitter black teas, Anna explains—while their best-selling ginger kombucha is blended with goji berry and ayurvedic herb blends, strawberry and hibiscus-cardamom, rose juniper, and beetroot turmeric.

At that point, with the recipes down, it was time to take Empress kombucha to the public.

“There were two big breakthroughs for us. The first was seeing my nephew’s face after trying our strawberry kombucha for the first time. He was completely overwhelmed by the flavour! The second was when we took our homemade, hand-labelled bottles of kombucha to a vegan food festival in Oslo. We sold every single one—and were awarded best in show!”

From there, Empress decided to go all-in—and, since then, success has followed success for Anna and Christer. They’ve gone from brewing ‘booch’ in their living room to working with Michelin star restaurants and collaborating with brands as prestigious as Dior, Vogue Scandinavia, and Holzweiler. They also keep getting invited to serve their signature alcohol-free kombucha cocktails in events around Oslo.

Their philosophy of pairing gut-friendly ingredients with a passion for flavour and design has struck a real chord with the public—and has allowed the pair to expand their love of ferments to a range of related products. As Christer explains, the company is now producing “kimchi, our own range of vinegars, and alcohol-free wines alternatives.”

But, with their pop-ups and events, Empress isn’t just about introducing new flavours and ingredients to people. Rather, it’s a way of sharing a passion for delicious alcohol-free alternatives and tonics which come with a thrilling array of benefits. Now approaching the challenges of scaling, and courting the vast American and European markets, Empress is set to bring that passion to the wider world.