If you run in the same circles (virtually, I suppose) that I do, which I’m assuming is the case for most of you since you’re here, then you’ve probably heard of kombucha.
Very simply, kombucha is a drink made by fermenting tea. I know, sounds delicious.
I’ve known of its existence for several years, but wasn’t something I’d actually tried until very recently. Mostly because I was scared. Some of my fellow bloggers made it sound kinda nasty, and if you need to double ferment something and add lots of fruit to make it palatable, was it something that really interested me? I generally don’t consume anything unless I enjoy it, and the literature I found convinced me that it wouldn’t really be all that enjoyable. So I passed.
Until just a few months ago, when my sister brought home a SCOBY. The SCOBY (a fun-to-say acronym standing for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) is how that tea turns into kombucha, sort of like a vinegar mother. In simple terms, the bacteria and yeast in that SCOBY eat the sugars from the tea, slowly turning it into a lightly fermented, mildly fizzy, probiotic-rich drink. And one that, to my surprise and enjoyment, actually tasted pretty good. So good that we’re now officially hooked, and I’m going to share how to make kombucha with the world at large.