Crazy for Kombucha!

We love our ferments in this house - and there are cultures and starters on various counters, shelves and the top of the fridge in our kitchen.  Kefir, yogurt, sourdough, and yes, kombucha! 

Kombucha, for those who have not yet gotten excited about this delicious tonic, is an ancient probiotic health drink.  It originated in Russia, and has been used for centuries in that culture to promote longevity, general health and well-being, mental clarity, digestive health, immune boosting, and a myriad of other health benefits.

Kombucha is easy to make - it takes some diligence to keep it going, just like feeding a sourdough starter each week, the kombucha SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) needs attention each week or two as well.  There are 5 steps - a) brewing tea and adding sugar (usually black tea, but also green or white or rooibos can work well); b) fermenting the tea with the SCOBY "mother" culture (usually 7-10 days, depending on house temperature); c) straining the tea and reserving some of this fermented tea to use in next batch with SCOBY; d) adding flavour (juice, fresh fruit, dried fruit, herbs, spices); e) carbonation in glass bottles (usually 1-2 days).

Our favourite combinations so far have been: white tea infused with organic peaches and lavender; green rooibos infused with organic lemon juice and ginger root; and our homemade grape juice added to a black tea ferment.   By the way, this kombucha ends up being very low in sugar as the SCOBY feeds on the sugar, so in fact you (or your kids) are not drinking a sugary drink, but a lightly sweetened elixir.  We also drink it in fairly small doses, a quarter glass a day or so.  We think of it more as a tonic than a thirst quencher.  I especially love adding herbs into the mix to get some added herbal medicinal benefits.

Delicious!  Want to learn to make your own kombucha in one of our hands-on classes?  Sign up for our Kombucha making workshop coming up March 12, 2016. 

Successful Kombucha!

We just bottled and consumed our first successful batch of kombucha - it was our second attempt to make this delicious fermented live culture tea elixir that has a long list of reputed health benefits.  This time we got a large starter "mother" culture (i.e. a gelatinous mass of bacteria and yeast) from a helpful neighbour (thanks Mike!).  It seems that finding this "mother" is the hardest part of making kombucha.   After a week of steeping our tea with the starter culture and mother floating on top, it had turned into what we think to be just as tasty a kombucha as any we've been purchasing from the health food store.  I think we might be hooked.

Once we have the starter we can keep brewing, sort of the way you keep a small portion of live culture yogurt or sourdough from each batch to start the following batch.  We used a wonderful favourite wild blueberry rooibos (called the "Manitoba Blend", a gift from this tea shop in Winnipeg) blended with black tea - here is our method:

Making Kombucha 
1 litre water
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp loose black tea
other herbal blend to flavour (if desired - e.g. blueberry, lemon, ginger, etc)
1/2 cup mature acidic kombucha from last batch

Make tea, steep with sugar for 15 minutes.  Strain, let cool, the pour into large wide-mouth clean glass jar.  Add mature kombucha (save a portion of each batch for the next starter).  Place mother in the liquid with firm side up.  Cover with fine meshed cheese cloth or cotton muslin cloth, let sit in warm room for 7-10 days.  Taste to see when your preferred acidic flavour is ready.  Then store in refrigerator.

Making kombucha - the "elixir of long life"

This past week we had guests from an urban farm in Ottawa staying with us at our bed and breakfast.  They said for them it was like "coming home", and we too thoroughly enjoyed their company and had long conversations about permaculture, cohousing, land trusts, food co-ops, and lacto-fermenting foods.  They shared their home-brewed kombucha with us and left a bottle so we could get our own batch started!  Kombucha is a wonder drink, known by some as "the elixir of long life" because it is full of antioxidants and probiotics (along the lines of kefir, live culture yogurt, kimchi, etc).  It promotes healthy intestinal flora, stimulates the immune system, boosts energy levels, and has been reputed to heal a long list of health issues by detoxifying and cleansing the blood/body. 

We had been talking about starting kombucha after reading about it in the Wild Fermentation book, so I was extremely pleased to receive this gift!  Hopefully, if all goes well, in several weeks we will have a "mother" mushroom which we can pass on to others who want to start their own brews.

Here's a recipe for making your own kombucha at home.  It's also readily available in various flavours from health food stores.  I have not found information yet about whether kombucha can successfully be made without using refined sugar - this is one down side of this drink, as it does contain a fair amount of sugar sweetener, but the sugar is needed (as in wine making) for the microbes to multiply and assist fermentation.

Kombucha
1) Get some live kombucha (e.g. if you don't have someone to give you a starter culture, they can be purchased online, or you can use 1/2 cup from a kombucha tea you buy at the health food store)
2) Steep 4-8 tea bags (black or green, not herbal) per 4 litres (aprox 1 gallon) water.  Tea can be made with cold filtered water and let tea bags steep until tea is desired strength; or make a hot tea and let it cool before adding starter culture.
3) Add 1-1/2 cups sugar, which helps fuel the kombucha microbes (the more sugar, the stronger the sour flavour will be in your finished kombucha).
4) Add kombucha starter culture, or the 1/2 cup kombucha tea from your last batch or store bought bottle. 
5) Stir well, then cover with cheese cloth - securing cover so flies can't get in, but allowing kombucha to breathe.
6) Let sit for one week (or more) on kitchen counter - if "mushroom" grows it has worked.  Save mushroom ("mother") and use to float in your next batch of kombucha.  In another week or so the mushroom will grow another small mushroom on it, which can be saved and used, or given away!
7) Bottle kombucha (siphon into glass jars) and store in the fridge.  At the point of bottling, you can add various interesting flavour additives such as chopped ginger root, raspberries, or lemon slices, into each bottle.  The finished kombucha will taste like a fizzy carbonated sour-sweet iced tea drink.  Drink 1/2 cup each day for health benefits.