The Kombucha Brewery

While doing some shopping for the Thanksgiving holiday last year, I picked up a bottle of GT's Organic Raw Kombucha from Whole Foods. I had heard some buzz about it's health benefits. First sip, I made an "I'm not to sure about this face", but continued drinking it anyway. By the third or forth sip, I stopped making the face and was hooked. This beverage quickly became a habit. With a price tag of $3-4 a bottle it became an expensive habit. The more I researched and read about kombucha's immunity and health claim properties, the more it became a draw to me. In my reading, I also learned it would be significantly less money to brew and ferment this beverage at home, so I started looking around for my very own culture. I didn't want to buy one blindly over the internet, so I started inquiring and searching locally. I waited and waited to find a local source with little luck... until last weekend.

Now, almost overnight it seems, I have a full-fledged kombucha production line running from my pantry. I have 3 gallons in a variety of flavors brewing as I type (black, green, and peach). I got my first culture (aka "scooby") last weekend at a raw foods meet up and immediately started brewing a gallon with black tea and peach herbal tea. Earlier this week a friend of a friend was moving to Hungary and needed to find good homes for her well established cultures. I got the nicest biggest thickest mother scooby from her. Today lo and behold I got another couple of small babies while at a Weston Price meet up. I started brewing a couple more quarts using organic green tea as the base. When it rains it pours. Now my cup runneth over with this Kombucha elixir. Here's a toast to health and living well. Bottoms up...Cheers!