Lately I have been brewing up batch upon batch of kombucha and drinking it daily. For those not in the know, kombucha is a fermented tea beverage which dates back many years (thousands or something), and is reputed to be healthful and beneficial. It is also quite tasty to those who are into sort of yeasty, decayed tea... which I am! Hooray! You can look up more about health benefits and history in the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom. I will however tell you how to make it yourself, because if you just go buy it in the store it costs $4.00 a bottle, which is quite a lot, and if you make it at home it costs practically nothing.
The initial steps you can do right now if you want. All you have to do is brew some tea. Doesn't matter what kind of tea it is, though those who discuss these things on the internet say that organic is better and unflavored is better and herbal is not so good. Apparently the oils that you tend to get as flavorings in flavored teas such as earl grey (with a soupçon of oil of bergamot) is not very good for the culture that ferments the tea. Do not despair, you can add flavorings later on. So you make your tea... I do it like this: boil 2 or three quarts of water in a kettle (depending on which of my two brewing jars I'm using (a 3 quart and a 4 quart),
put a quarter cup of sugar per quart of water in the jar and pour the boiling water into said jar (which should be glass or food grade ceramic, no metals or plastics please) and steep a few teabags (2 bags per quart) or some loose tea (either totally loose in which case you need to strain it, or in a ball or sachet, and... well... enough to brew a decent batch of tea is how much you need). When your tea is brewed to strength after 15 minutes or more depending on how strong you like it, you remove the teabags and let it cool down to at least body temperature (heat kills microorganisms!).So, now we're at the part that you can't just do right here and now. You need a kombucha mother, alternately known as a kombucha culture, tea beast, SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast), kombucha mushroom (though as you can tell from the acronym it's not actualy a mushroom). This is a whitish sort of pancake creature that you dump into the sweet tea along with a bit of mature kombucha (about half a cup per quart). The mature kombucha helps suppress unwanted bacteria, and the SCOBY does all the work of eating up the sugars and maybe other stuff in the tea and making it all fermented and nice. You can get one of these things from me if you're in the area. You can order one from one of the kombucha enthusiasts you will find on the internet, like these folks. You can also, I suspect, create one by buying one of those $4.00 bottles of kombucha (unflavored) and pouring it into a jar or bowl, covering with cloth (cheesecloth is what I use, but a clean dishtowel works too, it's just to keep schmutz from drifting in there while still giving the little guys something to breath) and sticking it in a warm place for a few days. Hopefully a solid sort of film should form on the surface and that's your SCOBY.
Once your SCOBY has been introduced to your tea you just cover with cloth, snap a little rubber band round the lip to hold the cloth on and leave it sit somewhere for a few days to a week or so. Maturation time depends on the temperature (up in the 80s is ideal for the kombucha, but not so much for a human home... if you have a warm attic you
can put it up there if you think you won't forget it). It also depends on how much sugar you want left, if you leave it a long time it basically becomes vinegar as all the sugar is devoured. You can also kill your culture if you deprive it of food by forgetting it up in the attic for a few weeks. You can just sip a bit out of the jar now and again to see how it's doing and when you decide it's how you like it, pour off the now mature kombucha into various smaller jars, also of glass or ceramic, but with lids. You'll notice you actually have two SCOBYs now, the original you put in and a new one. You can use either or both of these for your next batch, either right away, or stored for a bit in the fridge along with enough of the mature kombucha for your next batch (it'll keep for weeks, though you might want to toss it a bit of sugar if it'll hang out a long time... the cold slows the metabolism of the culture quite a bit though). You can also toss one in the compost or garbage if you have no compost. You can feed it to your dog apparently, or I guess you could eat it yourself if you're feeling daring.Now. Flavors. you can pretty much flavor your kombucha how you like at this point. Just add flavor agents to the jars into which you've poured your kombucha (save some pickle or spaghetti sauce jars, or salad dressing bottles, or whatever). You can use flavoring oils, spices, dried or fresh fruit, jam, chopped up ginger. Sky's the limit! Be creative! I really like it with a handful of dried cranberries, left sit in the fridge a couple days to infuse the whole jar. Ginger is great. Strawberry rhubarb is lovely in season. Chai spices are very nice... there are many options.
I think that's everything I know about making kombucha... I suggest you try one of the $4.00 bottles first to see if you even like it, or if a friend makes it, try some of theirs. No point making a big batch which you won't drink. I have a glass or two every day and I'm feeling fine. It's part of a balanced breakfast as they say. As a safety and comfort note, if you have a particularly strong batch, say you left it fermenting a bit longer than usual, or it stayed in the fridge while you were on vacation as it does continue to ferment even refrigerated, I'd advise not drinking large amounts (more than a teacup-full) at one time as it could cause some stomach upset, as could, perhaps, drinking a large amount right off the bat.
Clean your equipment (jars) with hot water and dish soap. Hand washing is fine. Keep an eye out for mold growth. I haven't had any trouble with it myself. It'll look like mold. You get some carbonation in your brewing, and hence some bubbles at the surface which can appear, at first glance, to be mold spots, but it should be obvious if there's a problem, in which case you just have to dump the batch and start over, cleaning the jar very very well. If you're really concerned you can boil your jars (make sure they're canning grade material).
So, a note about effects.
When I first started drinking kombucha daily, and again after I took a couple weeks off of regular consumption due to travelling and then restarted regular doses, I noticed a change in my dreaming. I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but it happened to me and seemed to be associated with the kombucha. It wasn't anything bad and it only lasted a few days. I just noticed my dreams seemed a lot more vivid and, how to say... action packed than usual. The dreams had much more of a continuous story arc than I usually get, or recall anyway. They also really seemed like they could almost be Hollywood blockbusters. Zombie apocalypse stories and heist adventures among the criminal class... it was odd. My dreams are usually more fragmented and surreal. I don't know if this will happen to anyone else, but, well... you're introducing a new, odd thing into your body and it may affect your brain a bit.
So that's my long post about kombucha.
In other news, I went to the doctor for a physical yesterday. I am pretty much doing fine, but he recommended I listen to this guy:
Doctor's orders.
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