Creating culture from scratch
Kezi hiking the Camino Cielo with Tupper
Kezi Cheng, PhD
Sustainability-Minded Scientist, Animal + Food Lover
Kezi grew up in Xi’an, the historic gateway of the Silk Road, where fermented vegetables (spicy, punchy, and irresistibly tasty) were a familiar part of everyday practice. She later discovered the spark that connects science and food while TA’ing Harvard’s Science & Cooking course, where she learned firsthand how culinary creativity can make science concepts click. Each week, the course brought in visiting legends such as renowned Michelin-starred Chef José Andrés who discussed how food can bridge science and community - an idea embodied by World Central Kitchen, founded in 2010 after the Haiti earthquake. In hands-on labs, Kezi helped students explore everything from viscosity to measuring the elastic modulus of pancakes, heat transfer in a Thanksgiving turkey, and of course exponential growth through fermenting sauerkraut. Watching students “get it” in real time shaped her belief that great learning (and great fermentation) comes from curiosity, careful observation, and testing hypotheses — and that small starts, given time and the right conditions, can be truly transformational.
David at SYR stonehouse contemplating tasty NA options
David Heim
Photonics Researcher, Kombucha Craftsman
Growing up on Capital Hill (D.C.) and Lake Champlain (Vermont), David became a honey and dairy enthusiast early. Local beekeepers on Capitol Hill sparked his love and appreciation of honey and small-batch craft, while summers around Vermont dairy farms and cultured foods made fermentation part of the backdrop. Places like Shelburne Farms, a 1,400-acre education nonprofit and working farm known for teaching and practicing sustainability, helped connect his curiosity about fermentation to the everyday craft of cultured foods. David also formed a fascination with ancient Chinese tea traditions, such as pu’er-style aged teas. Legends trace fermented tea back to around the Qin Dynasty (200 BCE), where it was sometimes celebrated as a “tea of immortality”, a story that helped spark his first home brew. Today, David cultures a honey-and-green-tea kombucha style often nicknamed the “champagne of kombucha,” blending hibiscus with local honey, plus a bright kick of backyard-grown ginger and lemon.
Our Philosophy
We believe the kitchen is a laboratory and the laboratory is a kitchen. Science becomes tangible when you can taste, smell, and transform it with your own hands.
What We Bring Together
- A shared passion for the gut microbiome and food that supports whole-body health
- Waste reduction through fermentation extending shelf life and making food last
- Harvard Science & Cooking hands-on teaching experience, making complex ideas deliciously simple
- Quantum photonics research precision applied to fermentation craft
- Ancient cultural traditions meeting modern scientific understanding (fun fact: Xi'an was the ancient capital of the Qin dynasty)
- Community-focused teaching and learning inspired by visionaries like José Andrés, where food builds connection
- Garden-to-jar philosophy emphasizing fresh, local ingredients!
"Great learning and great fermentation both come from curiosity, careful observation, forming hypotheses, and testing them." Kezi Cheng
Micro-batches, made by a tiny team