Kombucha

Puerh and other heicha
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mbanu
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Fri Aug 28, 2020 4:42 pm

Surprised to see there isn't a kombucha thread yet!

Discovered in Latvia in 1913, but supposedly originally from the Russia-China border region once known as Manchuria. Popularized by the Germans, and with no connection to Japan or Japanese seaweed tea whatsoever, other than that Manchuria had a very large Japanese population at the time and briefly became a Japanese colony during the Second World War. Known in Java as "tea cider".

Made its way to America through a series of convoluted steps nobody seems to have adequately traced, and then became wildly popular in the late 80s/early 90s, mostly as part of a health fad, first by folks desperate for something that might help provide some relief from AIDS, and later as a sort of cure-all for a variety of chronic diseases (the most popular American brand, GT's, was started by someone convinced that kombucha had helped their mother during her cancer struggle).

Eventually there were a few tea-heads who started making kombucha with a focus on the flavor, such as Stash and Tazo co-founder Stephen Lee, who was involved in kombucha through the now-sold company "Kombucha Wonder Drink", while others have gone in the other direction and used spice and fruit mixtures to disguise not-so-good fermentation.

Any suggestions for commercially available pure-tea kombuchas folks should try?
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Darbotek
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Fri Aug 28, 2020 4:48 pm

I love kombucha. I don’t buy into the health benefits all that much, I just love the flavor. I drink vinegar out of enjoyment and so booch is like a sweet bubbly vinegar.
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Rickpatbrown
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Location: State College, PA

Fri Sep 04, 2020 8:24 am

I kept meaning to start a kombucha thread. I've been making my own since March. It is such an interesting beverage. I dont buy into the lofty claims of almost any food/drink.

I have not tried many commercial variants. My wife and I drink one every night.

I've experimented with lots if black teas and sheng puerh. I actually have a shou batch finishing up now. I typically add pureed fruit (pineapple, mango or grapes in the food processor) and do a second fermentation.

Results are extremely variant. I've had gross batches that I had to dump and Ive had amazing batches that are super delicious.

I won't call her out by name, but there is a certain forum member here who is sitting on TONS of kombucha research. She helped me a lot when I got started.

It's fun to brew. It's a little bit of a chore, but it's not too bad. Maybe 1 hour of work every 10 days.

Basic Overview of Kombucha:

Kombucha is a fermented tea style. Basically, you brew a large batch of tea (usually black tea, but all sorts of tea work) add sugar and then add a starter culture of bacteria and yeast. You let this sit for about a week or two and the bacteria and yeast do there thing and transform the sweet tea into a truly amazing beverage. It ends up being slightly sour and can have carbonation due to the fermentation. The balance between sweet and sour along with a "bite" and a slight funkiness give it a truly distinct and satisfying drink.

The key to Kombucha is the starter culture. This is called a SCOBY -symbiotic community of bacteria and yeast. The yeast breaks down the sugar and makes ethanol. The bacteria feeds off the the ethanol and makes acetic acid. In this way, the huge amount sugar that are added to the tea are largely consumed. I'm not sure how much sugar is in the final product. I'm sure it varies, depending on conditions. There is alcohol produced in this process. It should be mostly consumed by the bacteria, but if you are sensitive to alcohol or avoiding it all together, you should be aware. From what I've read, the alcohol content is less than 0.5% by volume, but can get into the 2-3% range if you do some weird stuff.

Typically, you brew the first batch in a large jar (I do 1 gallon at a time) that has a air permeable covering (tight cloth or coffee filter) to keep out fruit flies. This first fermentation process is called aerobic since oxygen is readily available. The bacteria are happy in this way and readily consume the EtOH produced by the yeast. After the brew matures in a week or two, you can drink it as it is, or most people bottle it in air tight bottles adding fruit or a little more sugar for a second fermentation. This is an anaerobic fermentation and the bacteria stop being so active. The yeast will convert the sugars to alcohol and CO2 and the fact that the bottle is sealed, means that the CO2 is dissolved in the liquid and it becomes carbonated.

One thing about Kombucha is that although it is supremely delicious, it looks really gross. This falls into the category of foods of "why the heck did anyone try eating this!!??". The yeast produces cloudy blooms that grow vertically through the tea. But the really spectacle is the large rubbery floating booger that grows on top. This is called a pellicle, and is a cellulose matrix from the bacteria. Many people refer to this gelatinous raft as the SCOBY, itself. I tend to fall in the school of thought that the SCOBY is actually suspended in the liquid, more than stored in the pellicle. People fight about this on Reddit. The "pellicle" people come off as pretentious and nerdy and the SCOBY people tend to be "less informed". Choose your side!

Adding fruit and doing a second ferment is defintiely suggested. This is where Kombucha gets really fun. You can add chunky of fruit, but I find they get stuck in the bottle a bit. I prefer puree fruit in a food processor with a little bit of Kombucha. This makes it much easier to get in and out of the bottle and also increases the flavor perfusion. So far, I have found that pineapple, mango, rasberry and grape are some of my favorites. Watermelon with sheng pu'erh is surprisinly good. Stay away from lighter flavored fruits like lychee, rambutan, etc. Even strawberry and blueberry tends to not add a ton of flavor. This is a strong drink and you need strong flavors. Also, higher sugar content fruits will give better carbonation. If alcohol is a concern (it is for me), limit your second ferment to a few days. I think if you let this go for two long, the alcohol content increases. My general rule is that if I can't taste the alcohol, I'm ok with it. So far, I've only had a couple "boozy" brews when I left them too long. 3-4 days is about good for me.

I have not tried adding herbs yet, but want to experiment. I've seen people add basil and thyme and all sorts of stuff. Sounds interesting. Check out ProHome Cooks on Youtube. He gives good explanations about all this.
https://youtu.be/D3Axb37lMWI

To get started, you will need a SCOBY. The best way, is to find a friend who brews Kombucha. They can give you some. Or, you can buy some off of Amazon. Apparently, you can even just buy a bottle of raw Kombuch (unflavored and unpasteruized), like GTs original.
Last edited by Rickpatbrown on Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:46 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Rickpatbrown
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Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:27 pm

Just bottled my August 27th batch tonight with mango. This is my first time using shou puerh. They are some supermarket baby tous that my mother-in-law gave me. Last night, it was just starting to "pop" with acidity, but I could still taste a good amount of sweetness. Tonight it was really nice. The mango was so amazing, too. I'm not sure when mango season is in North America, but it must be now. Sooo good.
Hope these turnout nice!
TheEssenceofTea
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Tue Sep 08, 2020 2:49 am

I've found sheng puerh, hongcha and white tea to work better than shou puerh or liubao. Perhaps the microbes from the wodui interferes somehow with the kombucha fermentation.

Sheng puerh and white tea can produce some very active and fizzy kombucha brews
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Rickpatbrown
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Location: State College, PA

Tue Sep 08, 2020 10:47 am

TheEssenceofTea wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 2:49 am
I've found sheng puerh, hongcha and white tea to work better than shou puerh or liubao. Perhaps the microbes from the wodui interferes somehow with the kombucha fermentation.

Sheng puerh and white tea can produce some very active and fizzy kombucha brews
I've had good luck with sheng and hongcha and ceylon. They all seem to produce and not produce good batches. I think that the SCOBY changes based on a lot of factors and this affects the outcome. Even using the same tea and trying to keep all factors identical, the SCOBY seems to "evolve". I had great results using the SCOBY from my "SCOBY hotel" (which tasted like vinegar). I'm starting to adopt a strategy of making a few batches with mother that I reserve from each batch and keep. Then, every few months, I will reset things by using the "hotel" mother.

I'm going to add a basic explanation of kombucha to my first post, so curious minds understand what we are talking about here.
m2193
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Fri Nov 26, 2021 9:37 pm

Rickpatbrown wrote:
Fri Sep 04, 2020 8:24 am
Typically, you brew the first batch in a large jar (I do 1 gallon at a time)
Is there a certain ratio you follow when you start with these? I have an embarrassing amount of random young Sheng puer samples that I'm sitting on (did not know that stomach couldn't handle young Sheng during exploration phase) and I want to try experimenting with them.
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