How to make Kombucha tea




 



This is my SCOBY-made it myself!



Well, today was the day!  I finally made my first batch of Kombucha tea!  I first made my very own Kombucha Mother Mushrooms, called a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) .   Follow my easy instructions on how to make a kombucha 'mother' mushroom SCOBY here! 

So, you'll need a Scoby, then you are off and running to an ongoing, easy process of making your very own kombucha tea.  Kombucha is touted for it's many, many health benefits, from losing weight, all the way to the more serious issue, of helping to cure cancer!  I've read so many testimonials of how remarkably healthy this magical tonic is for your health.   Kombucha is chock full of enzymes, probiotics, B vitamins, just to name a few!  Google to read more, but for starters, read this article about it's many benefits here!

How to make Kombucha Tea!

1 Kombuca Mother Mushroom (SCOBY )

1 C of Kombuca tea from previous batch

1 gallon filtered water* 

6-8 green tea bags (or black tea)

1 C organic sugar


*( You won't need to use exactly 1 gallon of water, which is 16 C, as you will use 1-2 C of the tea starter to equal one gallon/16C/128oz.)

Bring 4 cups of water just under the boil.  Take off of the heat.  Put tea bags in to steep for approx. 15 minutes.  Squeeze out the tea bags and remove.  Add sugar and mix well!  Add  warm, sugary tea to a gallon glass jar, or glass vehicle that will hold 128 oz.  Next add the remaining 10-11 C of filtered water.  This will cool the tea enough to add the SCOBY: Kombucha mother mushroom.  Add 1-2 C of previous tea, (this will bring it up to the 128 oz. of liquid) which will be your starter for this new batch.   Cover with a napkin and a rubber band.

Your kombucha tea will be ready to drink in 7-14 days.  Depending on how warm the room is, where the tea is fermenting, and your preference of taste.  At 7 days, you can take a straw, and dip it into the tea, past the SCOBY, and taste test.  When you feel it is ready,  you take out the SCOBY and 1 C of the tea and put aside in a glass bowl.  Now you can bottle your tea.  You could pour off into a glass pitcher, or use glass bottles that you have saved from other tea or juice beverages, and simply refrigerate at this point.

You could also fill bottles with 1/10 of juice of your choice, or organic lemonade, etc., and fill nearly to the top, leaving an inch or so of space from the top.  Now you can leave out on the counter for 3- 7 days, to do a second fermentation. The second fermentation would take out any of the sugars from the juice or lemonade as the SCOBY would feed on it...  Then refrigerate to stop the fermentation process.  More on this later, as I experiment myself!

*This is my first attempt at making the tea, since my experiment of making the SCOBYs was a success!!  I had 2 SCOBYs since I used 2 smaller glass vehicles, and not the gallon jar.  I'm hoping this was in my favor, not to my tea making demise.  I used the 2 smaller SCOBYs in the larger gallon vehicles, one a pickle jar, and one a glass vase I had.  I used these directions as seen above.  However, I had 4 cups of starter tea left from the starter jars that I made the 'Mothers' in.  I will not waste this starter tea!  In other recipes, people have simply thrown away the remainder of this starter Kombucha tea.  I will not- as I will reuse this to make 2 new mother SCOBYs!!  I will follow my How to make a Kombucha 'Mother' SCOBY, but instead of using a bottle of GT's raw kombucha as my starter, I will use my own!  I'll let you know how that goes!

This is so exciting to me, as I journey on making my own healthy elixir!  I will keep you updated on these recipes with this tea, and what works and what doesn't. 

Thanks for your interest!

Yours in health,

Natalie