My Kombucha journey

I’m making my own kombucha for a couple of years now and it all started when my son gave me a 'starter'.  Yes, it was my son who provided that odd looking living thing in a glass to me years ago.

As I was going on my journey I had some ups and downs and have to admit that I neglected it from time to time which resulted in destroying the culture. Guess, I got busy and distracted when it all took a turn in the wrong direction. If this happens to you just ask around and most likely you find someone who will happily donate a starter and get you going again. It is like looking after your plants – you need to water and feed them from time to time or they give up on you.

One can say kombucha is very forgiving and it is not difficult at all to produce your own liquid energy booster as long as you follow some simple steps which you can find below.

A few weeks ago I was asked by my husband if I could donate a starter for a client. The pressure was on and I took a closer look at my kombucha mother [the starter is sometimes called mushroom or scoby]. It all looked good to go and I divided my scoby hoping that it would strive a little bit more before it would find its new home.

Unfortunately, sometimes nature doesn’t play along and here I was with a majorly sad looking kombucha starter which I couldn’t hand over at all. If our client reads this message I officially apologise for the delay to collect his new friend ‘the scoby’.

So back into my kitchen and start again. I made a lovely new tea, added the required sweetness and slipped in part of the “mother”. Waiting and watching very carefully over my creation to my delight it all turned out perfectly and I hope it will bring the kombucha benefits to our client.

Find out more about kombucha benefits

Here are a few images of my kombucha production line at home

To make your own you need:

 1 larger glass jar which can hold approximately 2 L
Green or black tea / 3 tea bags or equivalent loose tea leaves
4 tablespoons white sugar
Filtered water
1 Rubber band
1 piece of muslin or tea towel to cover your glass container
1 kombucha starter

• Wash the glass container in hot water; make sure there is no cleaning agent residue left which could destroy your scoby
• Make a strong tea – add tea bags to your tea pot, fill it up with hot filtered water and let it sit until the water cooled down fully, remove the tea bags / leaves.
• Mix in the sugar and make sure it fully dissolves
• Transfer the tea / sugar mixture into your glass jar and fill up with more filtered water. You should have ¾ of your glass container filled up.
• Add the starter scoby including the liquid that was provided to you to the glass container, it might sink to the bottom, do not mix it up just let it rest
• Cover everything with the cloth and secure with the rubber band so no bugs can enter. Kombucha needs to breathe so don’t put a lid on it at this stage.
• I keep my kombucha in the dark kitchen pantry; some people have it sitting in the hot water cupboard
• Now wait 7-14 days
• After 7-10 days take a teaspoon and taste your creation. The longer you leave it to ferment the more it will eat away the sugar content. Some people wait for 3 weeks before they drink it.
• Once you are happy with the taste fill the liquid into glass bottles for you to enjoy.

Note: Make sure you keep approximately 1 cup of tea in the glass jar together with your kombucha scoby. This will be your starter for a new batch.

When you start a new brew it looks a little bit cloudy as you can see in the picture. This will clear up as your kombucha goes through the fermentation process.

There is a lot of information on the internet on how to make kombucha, what to look out for as well as taking it to the next level and adding flavour to it.

Enjoy.