Ben Hollander with Casper Fermentables' kombucha at the Mueller Farmers' Market (Photo by Jana Birchum)
Ben Hollander grew up eating and preparing a spectrum of Korean food and began his culinary education at age 13 by training under a chef. That chef – his mother – owned a popular udon restaurant in Seoul before relocating to Washington, D.C. "Her kimchi and her kombucha were things that really stuck with me when I left to come down here to go to school," Hollander says. "I missed that flavor so much and couldn't find anything that was exactly like it or even close to it."