Kombucha

You see all the cool kids drinking them. Everyone who knows anything about health and good food, anyone who can spout off about probiotics and intestinal health will tell you the same thing.

Kombucha is where it’s at. It’s healthy! It tastes great! It is the magic cure-all for all intestinal ailments!

It’s also about $4 for a 20 ounce bottle.

Yeah, that’s right.

If you are lucky, you can find it on sale for a mere $2 per 20 ounce bottle. Quite the steal, no?

Compare that with a 20 ounce of Coke, and well, clearly the economic win lies with the Coke.

Yes, I realize this is comparing apples and oranges. I know that healthy is more expensive than HFCS. I know that battery acid Coke is cheap because it is heavily subsidized by our government.

My point remains, however, that ounce-for-ounce, kombucha is pretty cost-prohibitive.

Especially if you are a mere private college professor who happens to be very cheap to begin with. I just can’t fathom paying that kind of hard-earned money on a bottle of swill. No matter what is in it.

This is also why I rarely drink and when I do, I prefer my 3-buck Chuck, thank you very much. (I’m a cheap date.)

I’ve read a ton of kombucha brewing tutorials online and finally about a month or two ago, I decided to give it a try. Call it my last big summer project.

I posted a wanted ad on freecycle for a SCOBY mother and got an offer within 4 hours. I picked up my SCOBY the next day, breweed some tea, mixed in some sugar, add everything to a big glass jar with a cloth over the top and then?

I left the country for 8 days.

When I got home, the kombucha was ready to be bottled and I’m not kidding you – this stuff tastes NOTHING like that stuff you buy in the store.

This is GOOD. (I may be the only blogger who doesn’t actually like the stuff available in stores.) It is REALLY REALLY good.

So good, in fact, that I drank a full quart size jar in a single day. And then I did it again the next day.

Little known fact (at least to me): Drinking more than 2-4 ounces of full-potency kombucha will give you significant intestinal discomfort. What I mean is that you will be on a lua leash for days. (Lua = Hawaiian for outhouse)

If you want more detailed instructions, here is what I used. There are also great tutorials here and here and here.

Originally, I had planned on making it at home as a practice for making it with my freshman Biology of Food class, but after the whole 0.05% alcohol controversy, I wasn’t able to get the institutional okay.

Alas, more for me.

You can flavor the kombucha however you want, after brewing. I’ve tried it with a couple squirts of flavored stevia alone. I usually dillute it about 1:4 with selzer water, to make it go further and *ahem* save my intestines.

I’ve also added spices to make chai flavored kombucha and also cinnamon ginger. I haven’t gotten too crazy yet though.

Do you drink and/or brew your own kombucha? What’s your favorite flavor?

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