I am VERY interested in that tea you were talking about before, could you message me what to do to brew it?
No. I had a bad experience with private messaging. It starts off all innocent like "wut r u waring" and suddenly Rexy is at your house with balloons and a hockey mask.
What the fuck are you on about? I want to know about Kombucha
Right. Well, Kombucha is a tea you can find in most healthfood stores, Co-Ops, or even some grocery stores. Usually the person buying it looks like they should be spending their money on a pair of shoes and a beard trimmer instead of fancy ass drinks. I brew my own to avoid the shame of being seen buying such a hippy-dippy product. Here's what it looks like in the stores:
Hot bitches drink it too.
YUM!
Here's what it looks like brewing on your shelf:
Holy mother of the antediluvian gods. What the fuck is that shit?!
Glad you asked! Kombucha is alive. It has a metabolism. It has deeper insight than a dozen Quakemans but can't do quite as many pushups. To be specific, it is a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY - How cute!). Even more specific, there's several species of Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, and Saccharomyces that all grow together to form a yucky thick frisbee on the top of some tea water.
Whatever. You're gross. Why do you drink that shit?
I drink it because I like it. I don't drink soda yet still crave something bubbly. I'm also a nerdy bio major and like having a mad scientist experiment in my house. The bacteria that make the SCOBY are probiotics. If you're not familiar with probiotics you're about to be.
Your body actually has a lot of bacteria all up-ins. Your skin, your mouth, your stomach, your sad leaky vagina, all full of bacteria. From a cellular perspective, there's actually more bacteria cells than human cells in the space you consider "you". These disgusting buddies do a lot of stuff your lame-ass cells can't do, such as digest food and make your armpits stink. If you take anti-biotics you kill bacteria indiscriminately, so the bacteria that makes you sick die, but so do your bacteria buddies that help you digest yummy steak. Probiotics are meant to replenish the good guys. Kombucha has the good guys in it.
zzzzzz that is boring. What's it taste like?
Tart, bubbly vinegar. I flavor mine with frozen raspberries.
Wow that sounds grosser than it looks. Tell me how to brew it!
Glad you asked! It will cost you about $20 bucks to start production and it is stupid easy to do.
First, you'll need to get your hands on the live culture. Luckily it is becoming fairly popular so you should be able to find some easily at the previously mentioned places. All you have to do is buy a kombucha that doesn't have any extra stuff in it. Look for "original flavor"
Buy two of these. (Usually about $3.50 each)
Second, buy a big GLASS jar. You want glass because this shit gets acidic. Like a pH of 3. (Don't be scared, orange juice has a pH between 3 and 4).
I bought something that looked like this at wal-mart for 8 bucks.
While you're at wal-mart buy some black tea. Often this will be called English Breakfast Tea ($2 Bucks). Look at the ingredients and make sure there's nothing weird in there. Also buy some sugar in the raw ($2 bucks). Finally, grab a couple gallons of distilled water. Now go home and feel the post wal-mart purchasing shame. Seriously wal-mart is terrible and you should kill yourself.
Now that you're home, pour half a gallon of the distilled water in a big pot with a couple tea bags in it (No less than 2. More if you want a stronger flavor). Let it boil for 5 to 10 minutes. Pour the hot water into the big glass container. Stir in 1 cup sugar. Let cool. When cool to touch, open the two Kombuchas and pour in. Pour the rest of the distilled water in to bring the level up to about one inch below the lip. Now cover the opening with a thin piece of cloth (an old t-shirt will do) and secure with a rubber band.
The cloth is to keep out fruit flies and spores.
Now put that shit in a dark warm corner of your house and wait ten days. Try to avoid the temptation to take off the cloth and peer in as each time you do so you increase the chance of contamination. Contamination doesn't happen often, but is more likely in the earlier stages before you have a super strong culture going on.
After ten days you will have something that looks like this growing on the top
YUCK! That looks like cat vomit! How do I know it is what it is supposed to be?!
The key here is uniformity. Everything in the above picture looks roughly the same. Contamination will look fuzzy and be localized. Below is an example of mold contamination.
Okay so now what?
Fish out the thick gross frisbee on the top. This is your SCOBY and your new best friend. Set her aside in a clean bowl. The remaining fluid is your Kombucha tea! Pour it into one or more containers that you can secure tightly. Put the fluid in a warm dark place for about two days to let the Saccharomyces (yeast) digest the remaining sugars and produce CO2 for bubblies. It is at this stage that you can flavor your tea with whatever you please. I have experimented with several fruits and found raspberries to be the most flavorful. Peaches are disgusting.
Now start the process over again! Brew some tea, put it in the big glass jar with some sugar, and plop your scoby back in.
Wait a couple days, crack open your sealed brew (careful, this shit can POP) and pour some into your finest glasses.
Oh did I mention this is usually about 0.5% alcohol? Not enough to make you fall down the stairs, but just enough to get that nerdy and adventurous hotty in your bio class to undo her hair tie and take off those glasses.
You're welcome.
Any questions?