Funny how the smallest change can kickstart something that seemed totally stuck. It's like when your wifi acts up and you just unplug the router for a minute, and suddenly everything works again. We get used to doing things one way, even when it stops working, because it's what we know. Switching sugars is that little nudge, a tiny variable shift that wakes the whole process up. Life's full of those flat moments that just need one raw ingredient swap to get fizzy again.
Two weeks ago, my kefir was totally flat with white sugar. Switched to raw sugar like you said. Bubbles started within a day. The whole batch got much more active.
Reminds me of when I tried to fix my sourdough starter by changing the water. Went from tap to filtered and it went nuts overnight. Sometimes the microbes just want something different.