We were lucky to catch up with Amanda Behl recently and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

It’s kind of a funny story. When my husband and myself decided to venture into the small business world, we took a dive. Myself with a background in law enforcement and Jason with some familiarity in business, having a background in retail, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy, and naming a business is crucial. Jason was seeking to correlate the name with what we did. I, myself on the other hand was wanting something that encompassed us, what we do, what we’ve been through, and yet show our cultural pride. I essentially wanted our name/logo to share our story.

Jason was so fixated on having a Secada as the logo and working our “unnamed business” around that. We had countless discussions and disagreements yet I unfortunately brought nothing to the table. Until one day, while we sat in the car waiting for his cousin, I told him “I really feel that you’re shying away from our culture and no one wants a bug on their bottle.” Jason said the Secada is one of the longest living bugs out there and mentioned some other facts, which I lost interest in truth be told. So as we sat I jokingly said let’s do something like loteria (mexican lottery game) and do “El Mundo,” I was primarily just being obnoxious. Then I told him look what we’ve fought for in life, it hasn’t been easy, and kombucha fights for your gut to balance everything. I told him then consider why we started consuming kombucha. At that juncture, it was almost like a light bulb went off and I said oh my God, “kombucha Lucha” Jason looked and me and said I like it but, and we simultaneously said “Lucha Kombucha.” And the rest is history.

Amanda, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Amanda Behl, and at 26 year’s old, I was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer, and that started my life long health struggle. I am 44 year’s old now, and in those years I under went so much medically with Jason by my side as my support and caregiver. During those years, and with so many medications, my immune system was taking a hit and it was low. So his cousin bought me some kombucha, never having known anything about it, I researched it. It had so many benefits, but I primarily loved that it would help my gut to balance everything else. Plus it wasn’t another medication and it was natural. So I started consuming kombucha. I honestly started feeling better over time. It helped my upset stomach and boosted my immune system, which was key. Soon after I stopped buying and was brewing and fermenting my own. I thought, if it helped me, I want to share that and educate people also and that’s how our journey started. We started brewing, fermenting, and kegging kombucha. Although we started with kombucha, we began producing beverages that helped me or that were just overall good for you without sacrificing flavor and still implementing our cultural flare. I learned a lot during my cancer treatments dietary wise, while working with my dietitian and i wanted to share that with the world.

I love hearing stories from customers when they say kombucha has helped them in so many ways. Hearing stories like that reminds me of why we started. Being the only locally brewed and fermented kombucha business in Yuma, Arizona sets us apart from everyone.

However, we want our customers to know that we don’t only specialize in kombucha we do speciality cold brew, we do tepache (a Pineapple fermented drink native to Mexico), tejuino (a fermented corn drink also native to Mexico), and Nitro Teas. What makes our Nitro Teas so unique is that the nitrogen helps in making our premium brewed Teas creamy, smooth, adds a natural sweetness without having all that sugar. So you’re not drinking a high sugary drink.

Everything we do is unique, it’s what sets us apart from everyone else and that is what makes me proud.

Our brand tells our story and every price of merch we launch is a story. We don’t create things to just sell and make a profit. We create things and merch because it is meaningful to us.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We grew our business from selling at the Farmer’s Market. We were thankful that often enough we sold out. As we grew in popularity, we grew in demand. Unfortunately, COVID hit and it impacted us tremendously, like every other small business out there, I imagine. We went from selling 8 kegs weekly to selling absolutely nothing. We were throwing kombucha away.

One morning while walking with Jason, I told him “hey this might be it, I think Lucha is done.” (This memory is such an emotional one for me) essentially what I was doing was trying to prepare my husband for the fact that we will likely go out of business. He looked at me and asked “what are you saying? You want to give up on the business?” My response was, trying to make him understand that I wasn’t necessarily wanting to give up on our business but face the realization of it. He then told me, “No, we’re not giving up on this, we’re LUCHA!” I said ok let’s keep going figure out strategies and move our business through this Hump.

Shortly thereafter, people reached out to us requesting kombucha be delivered to them and left at their front door (because we were still in COVID times). So we listened to our customers and we started delivering. That helped us survive a difficult time for our small business.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

We typically get two types of clients. We get the out of town clients and those are primarily sourced through Google. Those clients usually do a Google search and end up at our store. We may not have that many reviews, but it’s the quality and content of our reviews that have an impact.

The other types of clients we get are local clients. Those are usually by word of mouth or someone brought them in.

We strive everyday that we open to provide you as the client the best customer service and product.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @Lucha_kombucha
• Facebook: Lucha Kombucha
• Other: Tiktok @Lucha.kombucha Email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Shot by Doza on the images watermarked