Kombucha

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Kombucha is a fermented sweet black tea with a very interesting history. It is a live food containing probiotics and has been purported to have many healthful properties. < * Disclaimer*- I’m not guaranteeing any property in particular, except an enjoyable probiotic caffeinated beverage :) > It has become popular since the 1990’s due to the mainstream appetite for health foods and probiotics. Clever marketing jumped on this trend to sell people the next new thing. Luckily, you can make it at home for a fraction of the cost and none of the packaging.

The history behind the name has gone through various iterations and current pop culture has bestowed the word ‘kombucha’ on this beverage. It has nothing to do with the seaweed kombu. It is cha (‘tea’), so at least that part is right. Kombucha lore has a murky background - possibly, yet unreliably related to the Chinese Qin Dynasty in 220 BC, and then dropping out of sight, resurfacing at the turn of the century in Russia, Germany and Eastern European countries as ‘tea kvass’. There are mentions of it being consumed during both WWI and II, until both tea and sugar became scarce. It resurfaced again in the 1950’s in Europe and gained a firm foothold along with yogurt as a fermented probiotic food. Scandinavia is particularly delighted with it. North America has been catching up since the ‘90’s and it is now in the hipster beverage forefront, with kombucheries rivaling distilleries in popularity.

At its most basic, kombucha is sugary black tea, to which is added a particular microbial mother culture called a SCOBY. The acronym which stands for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast, and is made up of a collection of osmophilic (can stand up to high concentrations of sugar) bacteria and yeasts. These microbes consume and break down the sugar, giving off acetic and lactic acid as metabolic byproducts. The familiar vinegary odor is quite paradoxical to the sweet fizzy taste. A particular member of the group (Acetobacter Xylinum) also excretes cellulose to form a matrix or “zoogleal mat” on top of the fermenting tea for the new daughter colony to inhabit. It’s not very pretty, but dividing this matrix allows propagation of the colony, so you can give part of your SCOBY to your friends.

How to do this: Every time you make kombucha, a new daughter SCOBY forms lens-like at the top of the fermentation vessel. You can peel it off and give it away, or simply leave it and the SCOBY mother will grow thicker. To give part of that away, wait until a fermentation cycle has occurred, then wash your hands, pour the SCOBY into a clean bowl and tear or cut part of it off with scissors. Donate at least a 3” diameter piece and be sure to include half a cup of the liquid for 2 reasons. 1) the fermented liquid will also contain lots of free floating microbes (see image) and 2) has a low pH. This acidity will help the next batch start up quickly and prevent the growth of unwanted bacteria that might have tried to join the party. Do baste your SCOBY every once in a while to keep it acidulated and hydrated. You can also gently rock the fermentation vessel to allow liquid to flow over the surface.

Make sure you keep your SCOBY vessel covered with a tea towel so air can get in, but not fruit flies. Those little pests will destroy your culture, and they LOVE the sugary vinegary liquid. It’s always good to keep a piece of SCOBY and liquid as back up in the fridge in case contamination of your fermentation vessel happens (oops -> you just made compost). To reanimate a cold SCOBY, take it out and bring it to room temperature and it should happily start right back up again with tea and sugar, even after months of fridge time.

Here’s the recipe for both primary and secondary ferments.