Homemade Kombucha

ALERT: If you have a sensitive stomach, you might not want to look at the photos I have on this post. 

I make Kombucha  A friend introduced me to it, yes, another health nut. :-) Kombucha is a health drink. The syllable "Cha" means tea in Chinese and Cantonese. But I believe this drink is from Russia. Kombucha has a lot of benefits. It detoxes the body and supplies the body with probiotics. 

The liquid is tea of course. The lighter colored liquid is Green tea and the darker colored is Chrysanthemum tea. The white mushroom looking thing is called Scoby. Not Scooby. ScOby. It is an organism. This Scoby absorbs the sugar I put in the tea and also caffeine, so I have heard, and spits out bubbles of probiotics into the tea. After a few days of brewing, the tea becomes "carbonated" and not sweet. Many people use Kombucha recipes to make different flavored drinks. 

Scobies are grown. I have grown some just by leaving a bowl of Kombucha around (covered). One risk that I know of is that if you leave the Scoby in for too long, the alcohol content will be high. So, here's how to make Kombucha:

1. Boil 2 cups of water (I use filtered)

2. 20 min 4 tea bags (any tea but tea with oil, like earl grey)

3. Mix in 1 cup white sugar

4. Mix in 2 cups cold water

5. Put in Scoby and cover

6. Leave in a warm dark place for 2-4 days

7. Strain Kombucha and store in refrigerator

8. Repeat 1-7 for the Scoby

GREEN TEA

CHRYSANTHEMUM TEA