Kombucha: Digestions Friend & How You Can Grow Your Own Kombucha Starter.

Somewhere along the way we discovered kombucha at a natural food store, it was actually Nathan and his love of tea.

He was surprised when he took his first drink because of how different it tasted. Very much fermented with a hint of vinegar. He had me try it too, I wasn’t a fan but he managed to finish his entire bottle that day.

Kombucha is a probiotic rich, fermented tea beverage. It is considered a raw food that is beneficial because of all the probiotics and antioxidants that it contains. It’s great for digestive health and is also said to be a powerful detoxing beverage.

It contains lots of essential vitamins such as folic acid, vitamin B2, vitamin B6, vitamin B1, vitamin B3, vitamin B12. It also contains antioxidants including EGCG, Glucuronic Acid, Lactic Acid & Acetic Acid. Bacillus coagulans & S. Boulardii are the probiotic organisms it typically contains.

After discovering firsthand how beneficial kombucha can be I decided I wanted to try to making my own because frankly it’s expensive stuff. Plus, our household is no stranger to fermented or brewed beverages. Turns out making your own is quite easy too!

Here’s how to grow your own starter:

Kombucha starter is as easy as one bottle of organic raw kombucha that is unsweetened combined with 1 cup of room temperature sweetened tea (can be black tea or green tea). All you do is pour your bottle of kombucha into a glass jar, then you add your cup of sweetened tea.

Some notes:

• Be sure to sterilize the jar that you’ll use to make your kombucha starter in first!
• Cover your glass jar with a towel so it can breathe and so it stays contaminant free. I chose to rubber band a towel over the lid. Then place your jar in a warm place to grow.
• People in colder climates will need to wait longer than those in warmer climates for their starter to grow as the warmth of the liquid lends to the sugars being consumed and thus growing the starter.

Your kombucha starter, known as a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast), a Mother, mushroom, etc. grows at the top of your liquid overtime.

In the beginning it looks like a thin-film but it slowly thickens as your jar of liquid sits. Once it is about a quarter of an inch thick you can get started making your own homemade kombucha.

You can find the subsequent Kombucha recipe here.