Ingredients
Instructions
Initial Fermentation:
Boil a quart of water and steep 8 black or green tea bags for ten minutes. Discard bags, add sugar, dissolve. Add 2 more quarts of water. Cool. Add SCOBY and liquid. If you’re going to touch the SCOBY, wash your hands and rinse in vinegar first. Secure with a tight cloth top, put in a dark place and don’t disturb at all for a week.
At day 7, taste with a straw. If too sweet, let it brew some more. If too vinegary, brew shorter time next time. I let mine go for 3 weeks or so to get rid of the sugar.
Second Fermentation:
Sanitize your hands with the vinegar. Remove the SCOBYs from the brewed kombucha and set aside. You should have two SCOBYs now – your original one and the new one that formed during this brew. Reserve 1 cup of brewed kombucha as your starter.
Strain your fermented tea into a flip top bottle that can stand some pressure building. Add a few tbs of juice, berries, maybe ginger or a cinnamon stick. Tighten. Burp once a day for 3 or 4 days or until you like the flavor. Store in the fridge once it’s done fermenting.
To make more SCOBYs:
Put a SCOBY and some kombucha in a Ball jar. Add COOLED sweet tea at the rate of 4 ounces of black tea to 1 TBS organic sugar. Cover with a plastic lid. A new SCOBY will form. If you don’t use it in a month, feed it again. A third SCOBY will form. Keep this on hand in case a friend wants one or yours gets contaminated. (Recipe ♦168)