Passionate Homemaking

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Jul 14

Kombucha: Refreshing Summer Drink

from the kitchen, health boosters Add comments

Thanks to my sweet SIL Autumn Edmonds for shar­ing this won­der­ful post on Kom­bucha for us! I just recently com­pleted my first batch of the drink and we thor­oughly enjoyed it. It is a won­der­fully refresh­ing drink for summer espe­cially! Pleas­antly fizzy and sweet! Fer­ment­ing for seven days works great for us. As Autumn men­tions at the end there has been some debate over the safety of con­sum­ing this prod­uct as a preg­nant or nurs­ing mother. Her cousin, a nurse, assured us that drink­ing this bev­er­age in mod­er­a­tion during preg­nancy or nurs­ing is per­fectly safe. We have mush­rooms to share for any of our local friends, just send me an e-mail.

Want to be groove with the hip­pies, save money and offer a help­ing hand to your liver? Tired of your drink’s main ingre­di­ent being high fruc­tose corn syrup? Now you have a healthy and hip alter­na­tive, equipped with a great name. Let me intro­duce you to Kom­bucha.

Won­der­fully fizzy and slightly sweet tast­ing, Kom­bucha is a great way to improve your health. The Kom­bucha cul­ture, often referred to as a “mushroom”, is a pro­bi­otic colony of friendly yeast and bac­te­ria. It acts on sugar and tea to pro­duce acetic, lactic and glu­curonic acid. Kom­bucha is great for detox­i­fi­ca­tion, boost­ing metab­o­lism and assist­ing diges­tion. It is rich with antiox­i­dants and amino acids, namely L-threonine (sup­ports healthy pro­tein bal­ance). Kom­bacha is loaded with enzymes and healthy bac­te­ria thought to enhance the diges­tive process. It has been used to pre­vent post-​meal heart­burn, acid reflux and has even been used as a cure for cancer.

Kom­bucha is very simple and inex­pen­sive. It costs about 50 cents a gallon to make, com­pared with about $3 for a 16 ounce Kom­bucha drink at your local health food store. I make mine with black mango tea from Trader Joes. Try to stay away from non-​organic teas, they con­tain fluoride.

Here are the instruc­tions:

Ingre­di­ents:
3 quarts fil­tered water
1 cup white sugar (don’t worry, the sugar is to feed the “mushroom” but is nec­es­sary!)
4 bags of organic black tea
1/2 cup Kom­bucha from a pre­vi­ous cul­ture or use 1/2 cup apple cidar vine­gar if start­ing with a new mush­room
1 Kom­bucha mush­room

Direc­tions:
1. Bring water to a boil.
2. Add sugar. Dis­solve.
3. Remove from heat. Add the tea bags. Let tea steep until the mix­ture is com­pletely cooled.
4. Remove tea bags. Pour tea mix­ture into a gallon sized glass jar. Add Kom­bucha saved from pre­vi­ous batch.
5. Place the Kom­bucha mush­room on the top of the liquid inside the jar.
6. Cover with a cloth (cloth napkin for exam­ple) and put in a warm, dark place for 7-10 days. Inside a kitchen cab­i­net works great.

My kom­bucha cov­ered with cloth napkin in gallon jar in my kitchen cupboard

7. Remove the mush­room. Kom­bucha mush­rooms repro­duce with each batch. Gently tear the new mush­room from the mother mush­room. Use the mother for the next batch and either pass on the new mush­room to a friend or dump it down the dis­posal.
8. Trans­fer liquid to cov­ered glass con­tain­ers. Reserve 1/2 cup of the Kom­bucha for your next batch.
9. Begin your next batch right away or store the mush­room in the 1/2 cup liquid in your fridge.

*Note: Do not wash Kom­bucha con­tain­ers in the dish­washer.

Sound good already? Here are a few quotes fur­ther describ­ing the won­ders of Kom­bucha.

Sally Fallon describes the Kom­bucha process well in one of my favorite cook­books, “Nurishing Traditions.” “The kom­bucha ‘mushroom’ acts on sugar and tea to pro­duce not only acetic and lactic acid but also small amounts of a potent detox­i­fy­ing sub­stance, glu­curonic acid. Nor­mally this organic acid is pro­duced by the liver in suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ties to neu­tral­ize toxins in the body…However, when liver func­tion becomes over­loaded, and when the body must deal with a super­abun­dance of toxins form the inviroment-​certainly the case with most of us today-​additional glu­curonic acid taken in the form of kom­bucha is said to be a pow­er­ful aid to the body’s nat­ural cleans­ing process, a boost to the immune system and a proven pro­phy­lac­tic against cancer and other degen­er­a­tive diseases.”

Jen­nifer Adler from the Con­scious Choice web­site writes;
“Some of those mir­a­cle health claims include: detox­i­fi­ca­tion, boost­ing metab­o­lism, assist­ing diges­tion and even curing cancer. Advo­cates believe that Kom­bucha works by assist­ing the liver’s abil­ity to detox­ify the body. This hypoth­e­sis is due to early obser­va­tions of increased glu­curonic acid con­ju­gates in the urine after Kom­bucha con­sump­tion, a sig­ni­fier of increased detox­i­fi­ca­tion by the liver. How­ever, more recent analy­sis of Kom­bucha offers other expla­na­tions for its poten­tial health ben­e­fits. First, Kombucha’s high levels of organic acids help main­tain proper acid/alkaline bal­ance in the body by pro­mot­ing tissue and blood alka­lin­ity. The fer­mented brew is also rich in antiox­i­dants and amino acids, namely L-threonine, which sup­ports healthy pro­tein bal­ance. In addi­tion to its poten­tial prop­er­ties as a liver-​booster, Kom­bucha is loaded with enzymes and healthy bac­te­ria thought to enhance the diges­tive process. Kom­buchana­dos swear by the drink as a pre­ven­ta­tive for post-​meal heart­burn and acid reflux. Some rely on the fizzy bite of Kom­bucha as an energy boost to battle the dreaded mid-​afternoon slump (the tea’s copi­ous quan­ti­ties of B-vitamins make it a great caffeine-​free alternative).”

So instead of pick­ing up an expen­sive and sugar ladened soft drink from your local gro­cery store, buy a kom­bucha mush­room and create your own delight­ful, healthy and refresh­ing Kom­bucha drink.

To buy your own mush­room:
Organic Kom­bucha
Check out your local craigslist!

For fur­ther read­ing:
Kom­bucha for Chil­dren
Kom­bucha Tea FAQs - a great resource for all your ques­tions! Refer to this first!
Kom­bucha Cul­tures
Con­scious Choice
http://​www.​kom​buchaamer​ica.com/" target="_blank">Kombucha Amer­ica
http://​www.​hap​py​herbal​ist.​com/​k​o​m​b​u​c​h​a.htm" target="_blank">Happy Herbal­ist

** Word of Cau­tion **
Some indi­vid­u­als may have an aler­gic reac­tion to Kom­bucha. Also, some say Kom­bucha is not advis­able for preg­nant or nurs­ing moth­ers due to it’s detox­ing effect.

If you are con­cerned with caf­feine with preg­nancy or nurs­ing, try this decaf­feinat­ing tip I learned:

Basi­cally you pre-​steep the tea.  Heat up a cup of hot water and set it off to the side.  Before putting the tea bag/ball in the water to make kom­bucha, first let the tea steep in the cup of hot water for 45 sec­onds to 1 minute.  Supposedly the caf­feine is released into the water during that first minute.  After that put the tea bag/ball in the water to make kom­bucha.  It’s essen­tially a do-​it-​yourself decaf of the tea.

It’s Kitchen Tip Tuesdays!


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33 Responses to “Kombucha: Refreshing Summer Drink”

  1. Donna Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 1:33 am

    Do you know how to ’start’ it with­out the mush­room? Local health­food store said you could make your own and he described it very sim­i­lar to how you are doing it with the mush­room and if I under­stood cor­rectly, it would make its own?!?! Do you know?

    Thanks for post­ing on this….I’ve been want­ing to do this!

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on July 15th, 2008:

    As I men­tioned above, the mush­room will repro­duce itself with each batch you make, and thus making fur­ther mush­rooms, but you have to have a kom­bucha mush­room to get you started. That is what he was refer­ring to that it repro­duces itself. Check out your local craigslist. I found sev­eral sources on there for free or really cheap.

    [Reply]

    Donna replied on July 15th, 2008:

    Lind­say, thanks so much for reply­ing.
    This fellow I talked to said you could start it with­out a mush­room and that it would grow one if you used raw apple cider vinegar…..ever heard of that?

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on July 15th, 2008:

    I am sorry Donna, but I have not heard of what you are refer­ring to. I am only on my second batch myself so prety new to the kom­bucha world.

    Kristen replied on July 16th, 2008:

    There is a Youtube.com video that shows how to make it from bot­tled Kum­bucha (raw, plain, unpas­teur­ized) with­out a mother. Here it is: http://​www.​youtube.​com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​f​i​4​T​Z​6​aTUg4

    I might have to try this if I can find a bottle at my health food store. I have not had luck find­ing any cul­tures on craigslist.

  2. Jessica Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 4:54 am

    Must you use WHITE sugar? Could you sub. Demer­ara Sugar? I have some Bragg’s ACV and would love to try it - only, I have no white sugar.

    Love your site, and thank you for shar­ing recipes and such great details.

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on July 15th, 2008:

    Yes, you must use white sugar (although you can use organic white sugar if desired)…it is nec­es­sary for the growth of the mush­room and is absorbed com­pletely into the mush­room. This is the one excep­tion I make and that Nour­ish­ing Tra­di­tions talks about as well.

    [Reply]

  3. Donielle @ Raising Peanuts Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 6:40 am

    The woman I get my raw milk from makes this and recently told me about it, so I’ve been think­ing about trying my hand at this, thanks for the how-​to!
    Now if I can try and bum the starter and mush­room off her…. :-)

    [Reply]

  4. Pamela Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 7:47 am

    Hi Lind­say, So glad you had such a great time camping…minus the late nights!! Say, are your broth­ers Dan and Sam twins? Our oldest boys are Daniel and Samuel and they are twins!! Just thought I’d ask. Have a rest­ful week, with lots of smiles and many naps.
    Bless­ings, Pamela

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on July 15th, 2008:

    No, my broth­ers are not twins. Two years apart, but yes we all look alot alike. I do have twin brother & sister who are the youngest, Bran­don & Brooke (10 yrs). Trying to take it easy for sure!

    [Reply]

  5. Michele @ Frugal Granola Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 8:08 am

    Thank you so much for this won­der­ful infor­ma­tion! :) A friend recently offered me a “baby” kom­bucha, but I had to decline, until I could do some more research- I didn’t want to kill it! :) Calvin & I were just saying we wanted to find out more about kom­bucha.

    How long does it “keep?”
    Bless­ings,
    Michele

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on July 15th, 2008:

    The mush­room will keep indef­i­nitely for the most part as long as it is stored in the frig with 1/2 cup of starter.. I am not sure how long the actual bev­er­age keeps, but we drank one gallon in a weeks time while just drink­ing about 8 oz each per day, with Karis drink­ing about 1 oz and it was won­der­ful. Check out the FAQ link I pro­vided above for more on this topic.

    [Reply]

  6. Jenny Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 10:07 am

    I just bought a con­tin­u­ous brew Kom­bucha jar through our co-​op here in Louisville! It was expen­sive ($50) but worth it because the stuff we buy at whole foods is so expen­sive! There is a con­tin­u­ous brew recipe on our co-​op web­site, http://​www.​wholelifeco-​op.com if anyone is inter­ested!
    Jenny

    [Reply]

  7. Sunny Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 10:51 am

    Hi Lind­say,

    When search­ing for more info on the kom­bucha mush­room, I came across a web­site that says you can start your own scoby. If memory serves, all it takes is a bottle of kom­bucha from the store. Let it sit in a cov­ered jar just like you would if making your own. It takes longer than seven days, but even­tu­ally, you will have a scoby!

    Bless­ings,
    Sunny

    [Reply]

  8. autumn sager Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 11:28 am

    hey lind­say, what do you know about flouride? adam and i were talk­ing about, with azlyn but it is already in the water and good for teeth. little ones cant have flour. tooth paste till 2,

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on July 15th, 2008:

    I try to avoid flu­o­ride as much as pos­si­ble. Do a little research on the web, there is a lot of info out there. Thank­fully it is not in our water or else the fil­ter­ing system we use fil­ters it out…I can’t quite remem­ber. I make my own tooth­paste because flu­o­ride free is hard to find and really expen­sive. I usu­ally just use water and the tooth­brush for Karis as she is too young to avoid swal­low­ing. If I use a little home­made then it is fine because it is all safe ingre­di­ents.

    [Reply]

  9. Kimi @ The Nourishing Gourmet Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 11:38 am

    I miss this drink…. I can’t drink it right now with some dietary restric­tions. It is very refresh­ing. Thank­fully, I have found some other cold drinks, like the Thai iced tea recipe I posted today, but am still exper­i­ment­ing with fer­mented drinks to come up with a non-​dairy, no cane sugar recipe. :-) Thanks Autumn, for shar­ing about this won­der­ful drink!

    [Reply]

  10. Beth C Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 1:48 pm

    I love kom­bucha, and I’ve been itch­ing to make another batch. But I haven’t made it lately out of respect for my hus­band. He thinks it stinks while it sits on the counter and is fer­ment­ing. It’s just a strong yeasty smell, but he doesn’t like it at all. Do you (or does anyone) have a good idea for how to keep the “stink” con­tained while it’s fer­ment­ing with­out killing the scoby?

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on July 15th, 2008:

    My only sug­ges­tion would be to store it in the cup­board. No stinky smells here! I keep it in the cup­board above our refrig­er­a­tor and it works fine.

    [Reply]

  11. Kate Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 2:05 pm

    Sounds good…but I’m aller­gic to mush­rooms!!

    [Reply]

    Beth C replied on July 15th, 2008:

    It’s a common mis­con­cep­tion that kom­bucha mush­rooms are really mush­rooms. I think they kind of look like a huge mush­room top, so maybe that’s where they got their name. Actu­ally, a kom­bucha mush­room is a “scoby” or a Sym­bi­otic Com­mu­nity of Bac­te­ria and Yeast. There is no fungus in it (if you make it prop­erly!) :) So, you might give it a try.

    [Reply]

  12. lylah ledner Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    Lindsay…you got my whis­tle whett…just think­ing about that great drink. a few years back i’d made it regularly…and for what­ever reason stopped…but, when i get back from spain….i’ll get going again. thanks for the post! lylah

    [Reply]

  13. Lorrie Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

    I have tried the kom­bucha from the health food stores and I really liked it. I tried not to drink too much since I was nurs­ing at the time and I was not sure if I should be drink­ing it. I have thought about trying to make it myself, but I have been afraid to. I guess I have no excuse now. Every recipe I have tried from this site has been really good. Today I sent home a batch of tor­tillas with the mother of the little boy I watch. I hope she likes them.

    [Reply]

  14. Annette Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 6:19 pm

    I’ve always wanted to try this, but the words “mushroom,” “fermenting,” “mother” and “baby” sort of make my stom­ach turn. Maybe I should just buy a pre­made drink to try!

    [Reply]

  15. lisadeb1989 Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

    let’s hear it for organic health. I’ve been on 9 meds for a decade and am SICK of them. heard of Acai? My doctor has, her hus­bands been drink­ing it for years. I how­ever have the over flow­ing med­i­cine chest. well I’m knock­ing those out one by one. my blood work results from the blend i drink have been phe­nom­e­nal.
    Google acai, it’s all there. A NAT­URAL super­food. anyone else drawn a line in the sand and decided you are worth organic health? we’ve started a garden and are loving it. love to hear from you lisadeb1989@gmail.com

    http://​nat​u​ral​ly​po​tent.​word​press.com/

    [Reply]

  16. Elaine Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 7:12 pm

    Hi Lind­say,
    How appro­pri­ate you should do a post on Kom­bucha as I just made my second batch ever today and started a third. My friend’s 15 year old daugh­ter taught me how to make it! I’m enjoy­ing it and my boys even like it. I’m thrilled to have a healthy alter­na­tive to pop and fruit juices! In a Google search on Kom­bucha one day I came across this site… http://​www.​lau​rel​farms.com Appar­ently a lady, Betsy Pryor, owns this Kom­bucha mush­room farm, which is approved by the FDA and ships them world­wide - not cheap though! She has a book out called Kom­bucha Phe­nom­e­non, The Mir­a­cle Tea. It’s about making Kom­bucha safely. Some of her instruc­tions are a little dif­fer­ent from NT but it looks inter­est­ing. Check it out if you like. I’d be inter­ested in your opin­ion!

    [Reply]

  17. Susan Says:
    July 16th, 2008 at 9:53 am

    Yea for Kom­bucha! Thanks for post­ing about it. I have been brew­ing sev­eral batches a week since spring. Our kids love it and noth­ing is more thirst quench­ing after a hot day of yard/garden work than a chilled glass full.You didn’t men­tion fla­vor­ing yours so I will share what I do. After brew­ing I strain mine into quart glass jars and add ginger (either fresh or crys­tal­ized) and what­ever frozen fruit I have on hand. My family loves ras­berry (about 4 frozen berries/jar) and it makes a lovely pink color. Today’s my kom­bucha day and I will be bot­tling 4 gal­lons worth. My girl­friend has been using frozen peaches and ginger so I am trying that. I leave my quart jars on the counter a day or two and then refridger­ate. My daughter’s wed­ding is Aug. 8th and I will be serv­ing chilled fruit fla­vored kom­bucha along with lemon­ade!

    [Reply]

  18. Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home Says:
    July 16th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

    You know, this drink really is sur­pris­ingly good and refresh­ing! When my MIL first gave me some to try, I was very skep­ti­cal and didn’t really care for the first glass I drank. But soon I grew accus­tomed to the taste, and now I think it is actu­ally won­der­ful. I love the fizzi­ness and the tart­ness, and it’s nice with a couple drops of stevia added, too. Good post! Reminds me that I need to make another batch!

    [Reply]

  19. Margaret Says:
    July 16th, 2008 at 8:24 pm

    I enjoy your blog and have learned so much from you!

    I tagged you for a meme, if you care to play along!

    [Reply]

  20. genevieve Says:
    August 9th, 2008 at 9:08 pm

    Hi. I recently made kom­bucha and was a bit appre­hen­sive about using refined sugar even though I know the mush­room con­sumes it. After let­ting it fer­ment for seven days, I tried it and it seemed too sweet for a “sugarless” drink which lead me to wonder and then research if there is any of the refined sugar left in the drink. What I found is that the longer you let if fer­ment, the less sugar con­tent, which, of course, makes sense as the mush­room will con­tinue to feed off of the sugar. The sugar that is not eaten yet by the mush­room IS refined and con­sumed by you. I also found that regard­less of how long it fer­ments, the mush­room will never con­sume all of the sugar. There­fore, I highly rec­om­mend using the qual­ity of sugar you would use in any­thing else you would pre­pare.

    Because I know that you all care as deeply as I do about the health of your family, I felt it inclined to share this small enlight­en­ment with you.

    For source of this infor­ma­tion visit http://​www.​hap​py​herbal​ist.​com/​a​n​a​l​y​s​i​s​_​o​f​_​k​o​m​b​u​c​h​a.htm

    [Reply]

  21. Jeanelle Says:
    August 16th, 2008 at 12:09 am

    I have a ques­tion about using organic tea in making Kom­bucha. I read that using organic tea can cause mold. Have you expe­ri­enced this? I would much rather use organic tea. I am excited to try making Kom­bucha after meet­ing a neigh­bor at our local health food market who has mush­rooms to share. Praise God for pro­vid­ing a more afford­able way to get Kom­bucha. I was buying it at the store once a week when I shopped. Ouch! Also, I didn’t real­ize I was only sup­posed to drink 4 ounces at a time three times a day. I drank half the bottle then the other half another day and I am still nurs­ing and expect­ing this Feb­ru­ary. Was this okay?

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on August 18th, 2008:

    Jeanelle,

    I have never heard of organic tea caus­ing mold, nor have I had heard of any one else expe­ri­enc­ing this. The rec­om­mended quan­tity to con­sume of kom­bucha is dif­fi­cult to really nail down. I have found dif­fer­ent sources rec­om­mend­ing dif­fer­ent amounts. I would just rec­om­mend using it in mod­er­a­tion. We drink about 8 ounces a day. The web­site linked above does rec­om­mend taking a week break every few weeks, so it doesn’t appear to be rec­om­mended to drink it con­sis­tently. I am sure you are okay in mod­er­a­tion. But again, I am no expert.

    [Reply]

  22. Mary Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 12:22 pm

    I know this is a late post, but I just found this site. I make Kom­bucha all the time and I use organic green tea bags and agave syrup for the the sweet­ener. Wardeh, at suchtrea​sures.com has instruc­tions. She has used agave, honey and molasses as sweet­en­ers. I use the same recipe as yours except 6 green tea bags and 1 cup of agave. I like this because you get the added ben­e­fit of the green tea. Hope this is help­ful. :-)

    [Reply]

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