say kvass to kombucha
I first tasted kombucha (kom-boo-cha) tea at a dear friend’s house in Goshen, Indiana, a regular stopover on our Winnipeg -Syracuse jaunt. Our host possesses the kind of leisurely effervescence that makes our time together always feel too short. Last August while standing in her kitchen listening to the rain that had diligently journeyed with us across the Midwest, she burst in suddenly to ask, “have you guys heard of kombucha?”
I’d heard of it only once before at my local natural foods co-op. At first it had just seemed like health store hype, but after lifting a glass of my friend’s fermented tea and letting it fizz and bubble down my throat like some earthy hybrid of tea, beer and champagne, I was a convert.
But not without a brief moment of doubt, as deftly captured by man with camera:
It took me about eight months to find a suitable “mother” or SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast). I could have purchased one on the internet, but like a sourdough starter or friendship bread, buying locally seemed part of the whole experience. I knew that if I was patient, someone in the Syracuse community would come through. And she did.
Yesterday I brought my baby home and left 6 liters of water to de-chlorinate for 24 hours (it evaporates off). Today I started the process of culturing my first, well, anything. Cultured as I may be, now I’ve got nothing on the kombucha fermenting away in my living room. All it needs from me now is a little patience. (Do I hear Axl crooning in the distance?)
With some help from Wikipedia, I have patched together a briefer on kombucha for all parties, interested, incredulous, or somewhere in between. Kombucha culturing works in a similar way to the old world process of making vinegar: sweetened tea is fermented by a macroscopic (read: visible) solid mass of microorganisms called a “colony.”
The drink dates back to 250 BC China, where it was named the “Immortal Health Elixir,” for its ability to balance the spleen and stomach and aid in digestion. News of the beverage eventually reached Russia and Eastern Europe as tea became affordable for the average Joe (or Fyodor).
The process of brewing kombucha was introduced in Russia and Ukraine at the end of the 1800s and became popular in the early 1900s. The kombucha culture is known locally as chayniy grib, and the drink itself is referred to as “tea kvass” or simply “kvass.”
I’ll keep the updates coming, but for now here’s the basic procedure:
1. De-cholrinate 6 liters of water by letting it sit for 12-24 hours.
2. Using 8 cups of your de-chlorinated water, make a strong, sweet tea: Boil water, then add 1/4 cup of black and green loose tea and between 2.5 and 3 cups of white sugar. (Don’t use any other sweetener) Stir until sugar is dissolved and let steep for 30 minutes.
3. Strain the strong tea into the rest of the de-cholrinated water (shown above).
4. Set the SCOBY safely aside in a bath of already fermented tea (shown above).
5. Let the mixture come to room temperature
6. Gently, and always with clean hands, place the SCOBY into the new tea and pour in the starter
7. The SCOBY mother will either sink or rise, either is OK.
8. Cover with cheesecloth and set aside in an undisturbed place with good air-flow.
9. Wait 2-3 weeks. Depending on the ambient temperature, the tea will ferment quickly or more slowly. Test the PH levels (should be around 3) or scoop some out and taste to your liking. As time goes by, the PH will fall and the mixture will get more acidic and less sweet.
10. Repeat the process, saving some fermented tea to use as a starter in the next batch.
Kvass!
Resources:
The Happy Herbalist, though not a well designed site, offers some really useful tips
WikiHow on Kombucha
A thorough article on the drink
He wrote the book
The New Homemaker likes it too
Taste before you culture
Hey Jen I can’t wait to taste this! I am hoping to bring home a chunk of your starter to make my own! Cobie wants some too.
sheri said this on April 8, 2008 at 4:14 pm |
this sounds very interesting.. I’ve been reading a book you might like Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz and Sally Fallon
Keith said this on April 21, 2008 at 1:21 pm |