Kombucha As Inner Life

Photo by Shannon Nickerson on Unsplash

Once when I described maple sugaring to a friend, she said she couldn’t imagine spending all that time making a condiment. Friends have wrinkled their noses when I’ve mentioned that my entire kitchen table was covered with peaches for canning, and some have laughed in my face when I’ve said, quite seriously, that I love watching baseball while snapping green beans.

It’s true that these folk arts are work, but for me they are also rituals, structures of meaning. As Emily Dickinson says, some observe the Sabbath at church, and some center their ceremonies at home. When I gift a bottle of my hot sauce or a jar of garlic pickles, it’s like giving away an edible prayer. 

Many of my recipes keep me close to the people who shared them with me, and I write today’s hymn to kombucha with my friend Tim in mind. His method makes the fizziest, tastiest brew, and I’m delighted to share it with you. 

Tim introduced me to kombucha while we were both observing Dry January, a detox from the holidays that eventually led me to give up drinking altogether. Kombucha has less sugar than soda and just enough bite to take the edge off after a long day. I’ve come to love the weekly ritual of brewing tea, slicing ginger and fresh fruit, and letting time work its magic. It’s one of the ways I’m still rebuilding myself, taking good things in and letting toxic things go, a practice that helps tip my inner scale toward the light. 

I also like kombucha because so much of its history is hearsay. The Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang reportedly dubbed kombucha “The Tea of Immortality.” He even demanded that all of his subjects drink it, which makes me imagine lots of children with puckered lips. Drink your kombucha! But the name itself is Japanese, deriving either from konbucha, the word for “kelp tea,” or from a doctor named Komo-ha who treated the Emperor Ingyō with the tea circa 415 AD.

Kombucha is almost as universal as beer. The active ingredient is a SCOBY, or “symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.” Russians call it the “tea mushroom.” Italians were so smitten by the “Chinese mushroom” in the 1950s that some fanatics stole holy water from churches to heighten its healing powers. 

To learn about how kombucha found its way to Europe via German POWs and the “kombucha zoo” that researchers created at Tufts University, check out this episode of Gastropod.

There is a whiff of alchemy about the process that can make kombucha seem like snake oil. During the 1960s one Rudolf Sklenar, a German physician, touted kombucha as a cure-all. His niece, Rosina Fasching, published his findings in a popular book, Tea Fungus Kombucha, which has entered its ninth printing. 

From Vroman’s Bookstore

Sklenar’s case studies lacked medical data, but a 2021 study showed that kombucha seems to enhance conventional chemotherapy if the two are used together. But those are tentative conclusions: “These findings suggest that kombucha maybe has an assistor and useful role in colorectal cancer treatment align[ed] with chemotherapy.” More than a placebo, likely does more good than harm, but not the elixir of youth.

For an overview of kombucha’s potential health benefits, check out the Cleveland Clinic’s podcast:

The biggest benefit, and the one most ripe for study, is the impact of kombucha on gut health. The Cleveland folks have a nice write-up on the gut microbiome, too. 

I make my own kombucha because it satisfies two of my rules for food craft: it tastes better and costs less than anything I can buy. If you are tired of spending more on a bottle of GT’s Synergy than you would on craft beer, and if you want to fine-tune the flavor, try this recipe that I learned from my friend Tim. I don’t know who shared the recipe with him, but we probably have those German POWs, their Russian captors, and ultimately a health-minded Chinese emperor to thank.

Homemade Kombucha in Two Simple Steps

Note: These steps may not follow all of the guidelines recommended by the FDA. Please exercise discretion and do your own research. Safety also depends on the cleanliness of your kitchen, your hands, and your fermentation instruments.

1. First Ferment

For the first step, you need: 

• a gallon jar that can handle boiling water (I use one from Uline)

• a SCOBY (get one from a friend or from Fermentaholics)

• 1 cup sugar

• 2 cups of starter tea (or distilled white vinegar)

• 8 tea bags (green tea, black tea, or half and half)

Add the sugar and tea bags to the jar and mix with at least 5 cups of boiling water until the sugar dissolves. I prefer 4 bags of green tea and 4 bags of black tea, but you can do all of one or mix and match with whatever you have. Let the tea cool for at least an hour or add ice to speed things up. It can be warm to the touch, but you don’t want it so hot that it kills the culture in the starter tea. 

Add the starter tea after the fresh tea has cooled. Then add water, leaving at least 3” head space in the jar. Add the SCOBY. Cover the jar with cheesecloth, a lightweight kitchen towel, a clean bandana, or two layers of paper towels. Secure your covering around the neck of the jar with a thick rubber band.

Let the alchemy begin! You can store your tea almost anywhere to ferment: on top of your refrigerator, in a cupboard, on a garage shelf. It will likely attract some fruit flies, so some people prefer to keep it away from the main living area. 

Temperature has the biggest impact on fermentation time. I don’t recommend leaving your tea in the basement for that reason — the cooler it is, the longer the whole process takes. My kitchen is typically 65-73 degrees. On the colder side, a first ferment takes every bit of 2 weeks. In the summer, 1 week is enough. 

If you want to be precise, you can use ph strips to measure acidity. The ideal ph for kombucha is 3.0-3.5. I prefer to go by the fizz.

2. Second Ferment

For this step, you need:

• 7-8 swing-top bottles (12-16 oz)

• a small funnel

• ginger root

• ~ 2 cups of fruit juice

• Lemon juice (optional)

• ~ 1/2 cup of fresh fruit

Before you get too excited about bottling your first brew, remove the SCOBY and keep it in a shallow dish or bowl. Stir your fermented tea, to make sure it’s thoroughly mixed, and pour out 2 cups of starter tea for your next batch of the first ferment.

If you have a healthy SCOBY and give your brew the right balance of temperature and time to ferment, the tea should be slightly fizzy by this stage. If it’s not, don’t worry. You can make it up in the second ferment.

A first ferment with good fizz. Photo by Joshua Doležal.

Now line up your bottles. I like clear swing-tops like these, but old Kölsh bottles work great, too. If you have larger bottles, like those Trader Joe’s once used for their Triple Ginger Brew, you can double or tweak the amounts below as necessary. Kombucha is forgiving, and you’ll learn from every experiment.¹ 

Add 1/4 cup of fruit juice to each bottle. I prefer pomegranate or tart cherry juice. This is where you have ultimate control to fine-tune the flavor. Some people make a Creamsicle brew with orange juice and vanilla extract. Others prefer apple juice for a milder finish. 

If you use a tart base, I recommend adding a teaspoon of lemon juice (bottled or squeezed) to each bottle. Totally optional.

Peel the ginger root and slice it finely enough that you can pour it out again later on. I dice my ginger into small cubes to allow more surface area to interact with the mix. Season your batch to your taste. 1 tsp of ginger per 12 oz is probably enough, but if you want a spicier finish, try a tablespoon. 

Once you’ve added the ginger, it's time for fresh fruit. Frozen works too. Use what you have: blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, kiwi, apple. I’ve never tried banana or melon, but who knows? Portions are also a judgment call: 2-3 blueberries, 1-2 raspberries, half a strawberry. Err on the lighter side with fresh fruit, since you already have enough sugar in the juice to feed the culture.

Top off your bottles with the fermented tea from your first batch. Some say to leave just 1-2” head space below the cap, but I have excellent results filling my bottles to the base of the long neck. 

Seal the tops and shake gently to mix the ingredients. Store your bottles in the same place you completed your first ferment.

5-7 days should be enough for the second ferment. If your storage area is cooler, such as a basement, you might need 10 days to finish the batch. Regardless of where you store your brew, you’ll want to check a bottle every few days. Be sure to crack the top just a little — if it’s fizzy, you’ll hear a sharp hiss. If you don’t, let the batch sit longer. If you do, it’s time to refrigerate. 

Give the brew several hours to chill before serving. I recommend opening the bottle over the sink, in case it’s ready to explode. Just as you do while testing a bottle, crack the lid a tiny bit and see how much fizz builds up before you open it the rest of the way. 

Pour into your favorite glass using a strainer for the ginger and fruit. If you see a thick head of foam, nice work! Your Tea of Immortality is alive and well. If there’s no fizz at all, then you’ll likely need to let the next batch simmer longer on the shelf.²

If you give this recipe a try, I’d love to hear how it goes!  

The perfect summer fizz. Photo by Joshua Doležal.

Joshua Doležal

writes

The Recovering Academic

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1. I have no experience with screw top bottles, but some say that they’re fine, so long as you can really screw the caps on tight. 

2. If your batch smells a little vinegary, that’s fine. If it smells like nail polish, throw it out — you might have introduced mold.