Kombucha

[panic in paradise]

ive never wanted to bother making it myself, id always get the purple synergy, but, im not sure if they have pulled those from the should shelves here yet...

i haver had one in months,.i noticed that the synergy was watered down in comparison while in colorado compared to what i would drink regularly in washington.

 

[batmanplaybaseball]

ive never wanted to bother making it myself, id always get the purple synergy, but, im not sure if they have pulled those from the should shelves here yet...

i haver had one in months,.i noticed that the synergy was watered down in comparison while in colorado compared to what i would drink regularly in washington.

I always stuck with the Synergy myself, they had an herbal flavored one which was fantastic. I always found that the more volatile the carbonation, the better. If you follow macrobiotic dieting, this is a major yang food, very expansive, goes great to balance yourself if you have had too much sodium. The stores around here are not carrying any brand anymore and if you go into on of them it seems to be all that anyone wants to talk about. It was through this that I found that kombucha had so many loyal fans.


And Dave, thanks for the recipe. You said something about pouring a store bought one and using that for your starter, is that viable?

 

[toocoolforschool]

Confirmation, i have started a culture from a bottle of GT's and it does work. they are still available in localy owned shops at least in my town. you just have to be sure to look at the ingredients list and make sure it is 100% organic raw(#7 is a farily mixable starter), there's some 95%s(the flavored ones i used about a glass and a half and the scoby took much longer to form. it started growing slowly around the outside of the jar and took about a 14 days to completly cover the surface but i made a pretty big batch. you might want to start small if your doing it this way and it's always better if you have at least some scrap of scoby in there. the scoby is suposed to protect the surface of the water making it harder for mold to grow, starting one from scratch has more open water space and is therefore less desireable?
Also i have observed that alcohol content seems to come from the seccond fermenting stage where you add fruit. the yeast created in the original fermentation stage and the fruit create alcohol. creating a "sparkeling magical" batch, however requires starting yeast and a scoby. by adding half a jar of synergy (made by GT's just 95%+5%fruit) in the beginning the batch created a champagne like aroma. the tea used was 2 country peach passion +1 raspberry zinger both Celestial seasonings brand. 1 cup starter 5 cups tea 2/3 cup sugar. it needs nothing when done and because it's never botteled and need's no fruit it less alcoholic if at all.

 

[ikkyu]

^ Thanks for confirming that! Guess I don't have to wait for a mother then. %)

As an interesting side note: in Slavic cultures (Ukraine and Russia in particular), kombucha is commonly enjoyed. The Slavic name for it though is 'Kvass', meaning simply 'sour'.

Actually, kvass is a completely different beverage altogether, made from fermenting stale bread with yeast, among other things. I've heard kombucha referred to as "tea kvass" though, maybe that's what you meant?