Local business trio Unity Jun Magical Potion Co. has launched their new product —Unity Jun Probiotic Honey Elixir.
Unity Jun is a sparkling health elixir crafted in Downtown Victoria from raw Vancouver Island honey, single-origin teas, and organic herbs and spices. Co-owners Cierra, Sean, and Dave celebrated the Vancouver Island Health Authority’s recent approval of their product with a bottle release party at Ingredients Cafe and Community Market this past Saturday.
“Jun is like kombucha’s wild cousin that eats raw honey instead of refined sugar,” says co-owner Dave Basu Roy, noting that although related fermented beverage kombucha is becoming more widely known among health drink fans, much of the public has not yet heard of jun. Unity Jun’s three owners have been crafting jun as a hobby in small batches for the past three years, sharing it with friends in the local electronic dance community.
“The process of becoming a real business has been as unique and organic as our ingredients,” laughs co-owner Cierra Moonglow Dahlquist. “Maybe the time we spent experimenting with the SCOBY counts as research and development, but we didn’t do anything by-the-book. No proper business plan, didn’t go after any investments – just crowdfunding – and instead of waiting until we had money for our own commercial kitchen space, we worked out a trade with Cindy [owner of Ingredients] to use her kitchen after hours in exchange for a cut of our profits.”
From the symbiotic action of probiotic microflora in its fermentation process to its kitchen-sharing arrangement, Unity Jun is all about healthy community. “We’re all about the new economy and we’re all about doing it as local and as healthy as we can,” says co-owner Sean Snodgrass, the tattooed Californian who originally brought the jun culture to Vancouver Island. “Our honey is from Frederich’s, our tea is sourced by Jared of Jaga Silk, our design work was done by Christina at Studio Robazzo… even our labels are locally manufactured. I could go on.” The trio hopes to succeed on a local scale, eventually offering their business template to aspiring Jun brewers who wish to do the same in their own local areas.
