KOMBUCHA

Ingredients:

• Black tea or any other infusion, like rosemary, hibiscus, verbena (it needs sugar and tannins)

• SCOBY (Symbiotic Community of Bacteria and Yeasts)

• Sugar/honey

Materials:

• Jars

• Beer bottles with mechanical caps

Preparation:

First fermentation, aerobic:

1. Prepare the infusion tea and put it in a jar

2. Add the chosen sweetener (for sugar 10% of the water)

3. Wait for it to cool down

4. Add the SCOBY and 10% of the liquid from the "mother", fill it until the top to avoid creating condensation

5. Cover the jar with a woven cloth (the reaction is aerobic so the air needs to flow)

6. Let it ferment for 10 to 12 days

Second fermentation, anaerobic: to make the beverage fizzy and to add more flavours (with leaves, herbs, ginger)

1. Put the kombucha in a beer bottle with a mechanical head

2. Add flavours (herbs, berry, leaves)

3. Add a bit of sugar (max 10 g/L)

4. Store it in the fridge after you got the desired amount of pressure to obtain thin bubbles

Fermentation tips:

Use glass jars and wooden or plastic utensils, do not use metals.

If you stop at the first fermentation and you don’t feed it, you obtain vinegar.

After a month in the fridge the level of probiotics decreases.

SCOBY lives on sugar and uses tannins to create their physical structure.

To store your SCOBY, create a SCOBY hotel: at 18-25°C, SCOBY in tea and sugar covered with a woven cloth. Refeed every 6 to 12 months.

Health benefits:

There are 6/7 different types of probiotics. It’s a mineral salt and vitamins supplement, an antioxidant and aperitive digestive.

Curiosities:

Kombucha’s SCOBY co-evolved with us for more than 3000 years.