The other day at work (I am a cashier at a health food store called "Akin's"), a sweet lady customer came in and gave me a kombucha mushroom scoby! I was so excited...and so was my husband, Joe, when he saw it...I knew he would love it because he has been wanting one for sometime and he loves working with new experiments for our health...and besides, we both LOVE kombucha! I have posted pictures of our new scoby below as well as a simple photo tutorial and recipe for making your own basic kombucha!
Basic Kombucha- 1 kombucha mushroom scoby
- 1 gallon of water
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 5-8 black or green tea bags (we used 8 oolong tea bags)
Boil one gallon of water in a large to medium sized pot, add a cup of sugar and a teaspoon of sea salt; keep simmering until all is dissolved.
Remove from heat and add tea bags; let sit for 20 minutes and then remove tea bags.
Then let the pot of tea sit until completely cooled and add it to your desired vessel (we used a vase that I cleaned out with all-natural, mild soap) and then add the kombucha mushroom scoby and cover the vessel with a breathable towel.
Depending on the temperature of the room, you will want your kombucha to ferment around 10-14 days...although if the room is 80 degrees it takes only a week for the kombucha to ferment completely (the warmer the room, the faster it will ferment; however you don't want the room to be too warm...that would make a not very good kombucha). Good luck and enjoy!
6 comments:
Wow! That is really neat; what a pretty mushroom! I love kombucha tea also; however, I think I've tried it with fruit juices: like pomegranate. Do you think you and Joe will ever try fermenting with juices, or with fruit derived essential oils: like blood orange, lemon, grapefruit?
Yes, we are very excited to make kombucha with fruit juices...although we would have to add the juice during the secondary fermentation because the juices themselves can hurt the scoby culture, so we would need to pour the fermented kombucha into individual bottles and then add the fruit juice and let it ferment for a few more days. We want to try making "fresh squeezed" juices for our kombucha (particularly grape with pieces of the skins remaining). Furthermore, we would like to experiment with making kombucha wine or champagne and add some champagne yeast to our kombucha! ;-)
My mom loves kombucha. I've never tried it because I can't get past the floating mushroom.
I love exploring different natural tonics and teas. Could you tell us what a scopy and what part of our health it may improve? Sorry if you've already mentioned it in your post. My careless reading is caffine related.
Nice tutorial, I would like to see more tutorials like this. How to make something good for your health in your kitchen. I am now your follower:
http://briskmamma.blogspot.com/
Thank you for the sweet complements everyone...and thank you Petal Belles for posing some great questions!
A kombucha SCOBY is a "Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast"; kombucha detoxifies the body and has a large range of health benefits. This "Benefits of Kombucha" survey from 600 people might just answer your question the best:
http://www.kombu.de/benefits.htm
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