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Golden rules for maintaining your Kombucha

• Absolutely no cigarette smoke as this can kill the Kombucha.
  Do not allow it to come in contact with metal – remove your rings before handling your Kombucha and use only wooden or plastic spoons. Keep it in a pottery, glass or good quality plastic container.

• No extremes of temperature. Keep it on a kitchen shelf, in a cupboard or storeroom away from sunny windows and direct heat such as a gas stove or oven.

• Cover the lid well with gauze to block out dust and curious insects.

• No oily herbal teas, please. They can ruin the Kombucha.

How to make Kombucha tea

• 2 litres of boiling water

• 160 gm white sugar (approx 1 cup)

• Two tea bags (black or green tea)
  (Instead of tea bags which are expensive, I put in the same quantity of loose tea leaves)

• One herbal tea bag (cinnamon or apple is delicious)
  (I substitute cinnamon sticks instead)

• One healthy Kombucha organism

• One cup of Kombucha fermented brew (mother tea) as a starter

Note: Keep the same proportions and vary the amounts to suit your needs. For example, we make four litres per week, which means doubling the quantities given here.

Use clean utensils. Wash hands thoroughly.

• Pour boiling water over the sugar into a glass, porcelain or good quality plastic container.

• Stir to dissolve sugar.

• Add the tea and leave to infuse for approximately 15 minutes.

• When it’s cooled down to ‘baby bottle’ temperature, add the mother tea and then float the Kombucha on top, cover tightly with a cloth.

• Keep it where it can sit undisturbed for a week.

Note: The Kombucha will probably sink during the first part of the fermentation but will float to the surface again (depends on climate – this works best in warm weather).

When is it ready?

After about 7-10 days, your Kombucha tea is ready to consume. You could take it out after 7 days but for diabetics, it’s better to leave it for a day or two more since the sugar in the tea would be fully oxidised by then. The longer you keep it, the more vinegary it would taste.

Strain off all but one cup of the liquid (your mother brew for the next batch). Bottle this and store it in the fridge. If you leave it out, it will continue to grow and ferment but at a slower pace than in the fridge. Any small piece of the Kombucha tea will start to grow so you may need to strain it again before you drink it. 

When preparing the next batch, keep the Kombucha tea in the mother brew on a clean dish. You can also wash it in COOLED, BOILED water to remove any darker strings that might grow.

What’s important to remember!

It is very important to gradually and slowly build up your intake of Kombucha tea over several weeks until you have found the right balance for yourself. Most people start with a 1/3 cup serving. Take it first thing in the morning (to aid digestion) or last thing at night (to help you relax and sleep). Slowly build up your intake if you feel you can (many times, you will feel the benefits with smaller quantities) but remember that up to two cups a day should be adequate.

It is very, very important to increase your supply of water once you start drinking Kombucha tea. There are rare cases of people reporting side effects as a result of not enough water such as a rash or other mild symptoms. I myself had a rash, probably as a result of drinking too much too soon (about 1.5 cups a day after just a week of usage! I found it hard to resist, it’s quite appetising!) plus not enough additional water intake. Surprisingly, it did not affect any of the family members, nor any of the other people I know who drink Kombucha on a daily basis.

(concluded)

Susan Alexander
E-mail: susealex@yahoo.com