Kombucha Tea
Ingredients
1 **SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast)
4 heaped tsps organic green tea or 4 tea bags
4 heaped tsps. organic black tea or 4 tea bags(you can use all black tea no green tea eg. 8 tsps)
3 litres filtered water
1 cup organic raw sugar
**Start with a sourcing a SCOBI (these can often be purchased via Ebay, I would suggest finding an organic SCOBI) this should also come with some tea as a starter.
Method
Place SCOBY in a large jar.
Boil water in a large saucepan using 1 litre of water.
Add sugar and dissolve. Turn off heat.
Add tea (if using loose leaf tea put into a tea ‘ball’ strainer or tie into some chux, to prevent getting loose in pan, otherwise strain leaves out at the end) cover with a lid.
Leave to steep for approx. 20-30 minutes.
Remove lid, take out tea leaves. Add remainder of the water and stir. When the tea has cooled add to the SCOBY in the jar.
Place some breathable cloth over the top of the jar (muslin or chux) and secure with string or a rubber band.
Leave undisturbed at room temperature for approximately 1 week. This will vary due to temperature, in the summer it may be only 4-5 days, in cooler climates in the winter it may be more than 1 week. Do a taste test daily after 5 days to check if it is ready, it should only be more tart than sweet.
If you leave it too long it will turn into vinegar.
When kombucha is ready I usually pour into individual bottles with spring back lids and add flavour to the bottles, always leave at least 1 cup of the tea as the starter for the next batch.
Flavour choice is yours my often used are: Frozen berries (can be pureed a little if you want or kept whole), fresh ginger cut into strips. Wild Pomegranate Juice is also a favourite of mine to just add before capping. The choice is yours to experiment and find your fave. Store bottles in the fridge. The SCOBY is now ready for another batch of tea…..
ENJOY
If you don’t plan on using your SCOBY straight away store in fridge in airtight container with 1 cup of the tea mix.