With language at times invoking mystic energies, chakra alignments, and a laundry list of health complaints to be cured, kombucha has steadily colonized supermarket shelves over the past decade or so. Its makers tout it as a healthy beverage, a supercharged probiotic tea with just the tiniest buzz—a feel-good alternative to a can of soda.
Not being much of a tea drinker, it took me a while to try kombucha. Then again, as a fermentation explorer, how could I not try this suddenly new and popular fermentation? And … it’s good. It’s different. It takes all of my notions of a drink and flips them on their head. The nearest comparison I find in my latent Southerner’s palate is that something must have happened to a glass of sweet tea—and that’s not far off.
Kombucha’s origins are shrouded, as are a great many foodstuffs, in legends and tales without much evidence to back them up. The common origin stories place kombucha’s creation in Manchuria sometime between 200 and 2,000 years ago. My guess: There are uncodified kombucha-esque beverages stringing far back in human history. (Fermentation happens easily. History, on the other hand, takes more effort.).
Like beer, kombucha starts with four basic ingredients, and through microbiology that’s complex to understand yet easy to execute, it becomes a lively, sour, fizzy drink. To start, you’ll need three things that are probably in your kitchen right now: tea, water, and sugar.
If you have the fourth ingredient on hand, you already know to grab your SCOBY.
For the rest of us, it’s time to go on a bug hunt for a Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast.
The SCOBY Hunt
If you were the sort of kid who always wanted Sea-Monkeys, then SCOBYs are for you! Okay, a SCOBY is not a weirdly desiccated shrimp—it’s more like a microbiological reef teeming with a number of organisms hanging out in a jelly-like mat. The yeast and other critters (particularly numerous types of Acetobacter) take nutrients from the tea and energy from the sugar to grow the SCOBY “mother,” meanwhile fermenting the sugar into alcohol and acetic acid (among other aromatic compounds).
SCOBYs are remarkably resilient communities that will thrive from batch to batch with just a bit of care. All you need to do between batches is park your SCOBY in a clean, loosely covered jar with a bit of tea and sugar or previously made kombucha. In beer-brewing terms, imagine a far less fussy and precious yeast cake, which you can toss into your next batch with very few worries and full confidence in what your floppy little Frisbee of goo can do.
If you don’t happen to have a kombucha mother lying around your fermentorium, there are numerous places to buy a starter culture online. Given their hardiness, you can even grab your favorite commercially brewed version of kombucha and grow the SCOBY from there. (That’s assuming it hasn’t been finely filtered or pasteurized. Look for a bottle of plain kombucha with little wispy floating sheets—SCOBY ghosts, if you will.)
Perhaps the best option of all is to follow the advice of Mary Izett, author of Speed Brewing and co-owner of Fifth Hammer Brewing in Queens, New York. She advocates going local: Hook up with other kombucha makers and use their mothers to grow your own.
Once you’ve secured your new SCOBY mother, you need to welcome her home with a meal. Brew a strong cup of tea, add water and sugar to a sanitized mason jar, and let your mother soak a few weeks. (Cover the jar with foil, cheesecloth, muslin, or the like, to keep other micro-creatures at bay.) Unless you’ve started with a big healthy colony, you’ll probably need to let the fermentation progress a few weeks to get a proper SCOBY. As long as your resulting puck looks relatively smooth, creamy, and tannish without fuzzy molting or strange colors, you’re good to go!
If you’re starting to notice a resemblance to the feed and care instructions for a sourdough starter, you’re not far off. In both cases, we’re encouraging the growth of a fermentation colony. Hey, earlier in this pandemic you mastered sourdough bread—so a kombucha SCOBY should present no challenge.
Brewing a Cup of “Tea”
Once Mom is ready to go, you’re simply repeating the starter process, but bigger. Izett’s base kombucha fermentation for one gallon calls for six tea bags (or 12 grams of loose tea) steeped in a pint of water. That tea will be strong enough to raise the dead.
Then you mix this pint of tea with a cup of white sugar and dilute it with two to four cups of cold water, to temper the mix below 85°F (29°C). Put the sweet tea into a sanitized gallon mason jar. Add a cup of previously made kombucha (or unflavored store-bought kombucha, or even two tablespoons of white vinegar) to lower the pH and keep mold at bay.
Add your SCOBY to the jar, top up with clean, cold water, and cover with muslin or cheesecloth, secured with a rubber band or tie. Place the jar somewhere reasonably warm (70s Fahrenheit/mid-20s Celsius is fine) and let it ferment for four to 14 days.
During that time, a number of synergistic reactions are happening. Our beery pal, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, goes to work transforming sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide. Acetobacters in the raft work to morph the ethanol into acetic acid—i.e., vinegar—giving your booch its bite. Other reactions are occurring to build and strengthen the raft and add other flavors and aromas.
Remove your SCOBY to another jar of kombucha, then bottle and enjoy your slightly fizzy, tart, low-alcohol beverage! Make sure you’ve refrigerated your bottles first because things can get supercharged. To that point, make sure you use stout bottles to hold your kombucha at bay. In Speed Brewing, Izett recommends either sturdy flip-top bottles or PET bottles (less dangerous with mishaps).
Booooooorrrrring—Why Be Plain?
You’re probably thinking, “That seems awfully boring; where are my endless flavor combinations?” Scanning the refrigerated shelves of kombucha, after all, would make you think no one drinks the stuff unflavored. (The leading American producer makes more than 40 varieties, and that’s even before you get to their hard stuff.)
When making your kombucha, your first priority is to protect your SCOBY. Keep it clean, keep it working in neutral environments, and avoid exposing it to anything that might harm or contaminate the reef. To that end, Izett generally recommends that you skip flavorings—fruit, herbal teas, herbs, spices, hops, and so on—until the SCOBY ferment is done. Your herbs and spices might contain flavorful essential oils that can wreck the SCOBY’s balance. Or fruits may have wild yeasts that can join the colony.
Start with real tea—black, green, or white of any variety—to ensure proper nutrition and a healthy ferment. Skip the rooibos and other herbal teas. Start with simple sugars and keep the base ferment pure. Wait for your primary fermentation to complete, remove your mother puck, add your flavoring components, give it a stir, and bottle.
Some great things to try as flavorings: herbal teas (particularly something fun, such as Jamaica, aka hibiscus), fruits (frozen fruit works well here), and never forget the secret herbs and spices. You see a number of “sweet candy” components, such as mint or ginger, being used to balance the kombucha tartness. (Mint, by the way, is what Izett says is her most surprising find in these projects. The “sweet” nature pulls the apparent acid down while also making the drink feel fresh and lively.) Maybe you want to lean into the tart while boosting the brightness with cranberries, oranges, or lemongrass. Fruits are great when pureed, adding extra fizz. For spices and herbs, I think making a tea with them as a flavoring agent works best. For other inspiration, Izett recommends looking at your favorite flavor combinations—look to other cocktails and beverages that you enjoy—and incorporate those flavors.
Incidentally, it’s not only home kombucha makers who suggest starting clean and making adjustments later. Greg Doss—who oversees, among other things, Full Sail’s KYLA line of hard kombuchas—starts with a clean base and then looks for “modern, natural, multidimensional flavor blends” to add depth and complexity.
Boozier Booch
As with other ferments, humanity has figured out that where there’s yeast, there’s ethanol to be had. A number of breweries and “boocheries” have sprung up to create stronger, more alcoholic versions of this health tonic. Ranging from the sessionable 2.5 percent to harder 7+ percent ABV brings extra kick, like a lambic with a different attitude.
Let’s say you’ve already tackled the hard step—making your kombucha. From here, it’s a matter of clearing excess SCOBY material from the brew; adding sugar, yeast nutrient, and a wine yeast (Izett recommends champagne yeast) and rocking a standard ethanol ferment for a couple of weeks. This is the perfect place to add fruit as well.
Once the ferment is done, bottle in stout bottles, wait a week or two, and sit back and enjoy your newly homemade healthy buzz beverage.
To that point, Izett offers one last tip for the aspiring booch brewer: “Drink local,” she says. “Harvesting your own SCOBY is cool and supporting your local kombucha brewer is even cooler.”
Time to step up, then, and give your taste buds a change. Discover the tangy world of fermented tea. If you don’t have a local kombucha brewer, don’t worry: There are plenty of new options on the shelf for you to explore. (Chakras not included.)