For 20 years, Ho Su Mei’s family has been involved in the business of making kefir. For the uninitiated, kefir is a fermented milk drink that is made by inoculating the milk of cows, goats or sheep with kefir grains, a mesophilic symbiotic culture that is incredibly gut-friendly.
“My family and I run a kefir business. So we make water kefir, milk kefir and kefir products like kefir cheese and even kefir soap,” says Ho.
Eventually Ho and her family began experimenting with kefir ice cream and realised there was an untapped market and high demand for the product. So 10 months ago, she launched Cream & Culture, a kefir-based ice-cream shop in Selangor’s Kota Damansara area.
“A lot of people may not know what kefir is, but they definitely identify with ice cream. So I think it’s an interesting way to present kefir in another form – it’s an easy entry barrier for most people,” says Ho.
What Ho is doing is actually uncharted. Even on a global scale, there are very few entrepreneurs who have braved this unconventional path.
Because there was no blueprint on how to do this, Ho says coming up with a range of kefir-based ice-creams wasn’t a walk in the park. She simply had to experiment until she got it right. She also had no real experience making ice cream, so she had to figure out how to combine kefir and ice cream into two things that melded well together.
“I mean, definitely the challenge for us is balancing the natural probiotics because kefir is a fermented product, so it’s basically very much alive and it’s hard to achieve consistency in terms of both flavour and product itself,” she says.
The kefir levels indicated on the ice creams at Cream & Culture pinpoint the kefir strength in each product, with three the highest and funkiest level and one the mildest and least potent in terms of fermentation levels.
At the moment, Cream & Culture has 18 different rotating flavours, including classics like vanilla, chocolate and durian as well as more distinctive flavours like strawberry matcha, peach oolong and blue pea ice cream.
“We are still relatively new, so in the initial stages, we came up with more familiar flavours that people generally understand, like chocolate. Of course we also look at what is trendy and try and fit that in.
“But moving forward, we are definitely trying to go more experimental. It’s just that I think at this point, we want people to be familiar with it first, only then will we try to expand the flavours,” she says.
Ho also adds that the tricky part of coming up with new flavours is matching the flavour profile to the kefir levels.
“So that’s where the R&D comes in, because we want to try to balance the flavours. Some flavours may not go as well with certain kefir levels, so we need to keep adjusting the recipe in that sense,” says Ho.
So what does kefir ice cream taste like? Well, surprisingly good. The original flavour features the highest level of kefir (level three) and yet even at this quotient, the tang is very pleasant as opposed to overpowering. The durian meanwhile is creamy and rich with the potency of durian secreted in its veins. Perhaps what truly sells these kefir-based ice creams is the fact that texturally, all these ice creams are incredibly creamy and rich – entirely indulgent in all the ways people are expecting them to be.
Given that the taste of the ice cream is indiscernible from any other, the benefit of kefir ice cream is that it’s actually better for you. It contains probiotics, is gut-friendly and also has a low lactose content as the fermentation breaks down the lactose, leading to a more digestible dessert.
Ho says she has noticed that there are growing numbers of diners looking for desserts with a side serving of health, something she is happy to cater to.
“Some people come here because they know what kefir is. Others don’t know anything – they just see ice cream. And that’s where I think it’s a good opportunity for us to educate them. And gut health is a big thing now, so we truly believe in this range’s longevity.
“But overall, we see that more and more people are getting more conscious about these sorts of alternative desserts and there is a growing market for people who want to find foods that fit into their lifestyles,” says Ho.
Moving forward, Ho says she hopes to eventually expand Cream & Culture’s reach and perhaps open more outlets in different neighbourhoods.
“That is definitely in the pipeline, but for now, we want to focus on doing the ice cream well first,” says Ho.
