foodfavesfun: the Kombucha experiment

According to Mr. FFF I have turned into a hippy. This isn't the case but this is what he sometimes says to me.

In one of my more hippy moves I decided to make some Kombucha. Which is fermented tea and its good for your gut. I know that is super sexy right? So at $3.74 per 16 oz bottle at Whole Foods, I decided to make it myself. Duh. I mean we have made beer before and that is fermented hops soooo why can't I make fermented tea.

It was a month long process because I decided to start from scratch. I had to first create a *S.C.O.B.Y. Of course, I could have bought a kit but the whole reason for making my own was so that I didn't have to shell out the king's ransom for my stinky tea. With the recent release of her new book Fermented, luckily I stumbled upon Jill's directions for the WHOLE ENTIRE process on her website. I followed them to a T(ea).

I made two types: a Black tea which is caffeinated and and a Roobios tea which is not. Below is a picture of the first ferment for the Roobios and the starter for the black tea (which wasn't quite thick enough yet so it's still getting it's S.C.O.B.Y. on).

After the first fermentation, technically the Kombucha is ready but I didn't want to drink stinky tea; I wanted FIZZY stinky tea. For the fizziness I needed to do a short second fermentation. In beer you would do this by adding priming sugar but I **researched and decided to use a mixture of fruit and fruit juices.

Here is the Kombucha ready to be bottled.