Kombucha
is said to be helpful for poor
circulation, fatigue and irritability. It is recommended for
people who have had strokes. A layer of the matrix can be
peeled off and applied to the skin for burns and sunburn, insect bites
and rash. Kombucha is acidic, so be sure you are getting enough minerals
in your diet when you add another acid.
 Kombucha
is commonly made with strong, sweet tea. The amounts and proportions
given below are suggestions, but you can use
whatever ratio of tea and sugar to water that makes a strong, sweet tea
for you. Make tea, add sugar, let cool, pour onto a kombucha
yeast
matrix in a glass or enamel jar or container, add vingegar or
previously-made kombucha, cover with a breatheable cloth and wait until
it tastes good to you, usually about a few days to a week but may vary
due to temperature or other variables. Any type of tea, plants or herbs
will do. It does not have to be camilla sinensis tea and it does not
have to contain caffeine. Sugar has to be real sugar, and cannot be an
artificial sugar substitute or stevia, but can be real sugar in other
forms such as maple syrup, apple syrup or sucanat.
Preparation, or things you will
need to have on hand:
 Kombucha Matrix
A
kombucha matrix or mother of kombucha, commonly referred to as a
"scoby". This is a rather ungainly-looking piece of fleshy-like
material. The most common source is from a friend who makes kombucha.
If you cannot get one from someone who makes kombucha, you can use a
mother of vinegar from a raw vinegar such as Braggs Raw Apple Cider
Vinegar.
Sugar
This can be either plain white
sugar, sucanat or a sugar
syrup made with 2 parts sugar to 1 part water. This can be either
invert sugar syrup or plain sugar syrup. See Sugar
Syrup
for
instructions on how to make sugar syrup. Invert sugar or candy sugar
syrup will taste the best, but everything else will do.
Kombucha
or vinegar
You
need some already-made kombucha as a starter. You will need enough to
cover
the kombucha matrix when it is in a jar and a little more. If you don't
have this,
vinegar will do.
Tea
The
tea can be regular,
decaffeinated or herbal, or any mix or blend of teas that you like. In
a tea bag or loose. You
can add dried tree leaves or you can add plants from
your garden. It does not have to be strictly camilla sinensis.
Glass
Jar
Clean
glass wide-mouthed jar(s) or other large containers. You can
sometimes get these at bars in the US by asking for their empty pickle
jars and at fish and chip shops in the UK.
Breatheable
cover for the jar
 Loose-woven
pieces of cloth that will allow air to pass through the cloth but keep
out bugs. Check how much air can get through by putting it on your
mouth and blowing through it. Some people use sturdy paper towels.
Making
the
tea
Brew
and then let it cool
down to at least luke warm or tepid.
Make as much
strong tea as you want to have for kombucha. Use about
3 teabags per quart of tea or any amount to taste of wild-foraged
plants and herbs. Put the dry tea(s) in a ceramic or pyrex glass
container and pour
boiling water over it/them. Cover and allow it to steep for about 10 -
15 minutes or until lukewarm or tepid.
To
reduce the amount of caffeine in your
tea, put the teabag into hot
water for about 30 seconds. Throw the tea away (or drink it)and then
proceed to use the now-decaffeinated teabag for kombucha. If you want
completely decaffeinated tea, you can use decaf tea, rooibos and any
suitable tree or plant leaves you have gathered from the wild or
picked.
It is not necessary to include camilla sinensis if you
do
not want the caffeine. If you want a tannin in your kombucha, you can
put in a couple oak leaves.
Strain
the tea through a filter or sieve if necessary to remove loose tea
leaves.
A standard recipe for a single
batch is:
Ingredients
3 quarts of water
1 cup of sugar
7 tea bags
1 matrix (scoby)
1/2 cup starter culture or vinegar
Instructions:
Use
the water and tea bags to make strong tea (Leave the hot water on the
tea bags until it has cooled, or even overnight.). Add sugar. Put in a
large glass jar and add matrix and starter liquid.
Cover
with a breatheable cloth and let sit for about a week, or
until
you like the taste.
Amounts may be varied to taste when you are familiar with the process.
Tea can be an equivalent amount of herbal teas.
Making Kombucha by the
Quart
 Put in
dry sugar. Use 1/3 cup of sugar for each quart of
tea.Mix
thoroughly.
If using sugar syrup, add sugar syrup to tea in a ratio of 7 parts tea
to 1 part syrup, or
700 mls tea to 100 mls sugar syrup.
Put a
kombucha matrix into a clean glass container 
Cover
the matrix with the already-made kombucha or vinegar. 
When
tea & sugar mix has cooled off to at least
luke-warm, pour it into the glass jar with the kombucha matrix and the
already-made kombucha (or vinegar).
Fill the container with the sugar-tea mixture, leaving a
couple inches airspace at the top.
Cover
the container with loosely-woven cloth that will allow
air to pass through it while keeping out insects. Some people are happy
to use paper towels for this purpose. Secure it with rubber bands or
tie with string. Let
the liquid sit in the glass container for between 4 days to a week.
Kombucha is done when it has a pleasant sweet-tart taste, that is, it's
ready when you like how it tastes.
When kombucha is done, you can decant it into clean glass bottles with
plastic corks and store in a cool place or in refrigerator. Do not use
screw-on tops.
[Optional]
You can add fruit, ginger, raisins or other sources of sugar and/or
flavoring if you are storing your kombucha to make it "fizzier". Cover
with a a cork.. Really
do not use
screw-on
tops if you do this.
Serve
your kombucha tea in fine crystal wine glasses. 
.
Adding Sugar to Boiling Water Method
1.
Boil 3 quarts
water in a baked enamel saucepan
2. Add
1 cup white
sugar and stir in
3.
Boil another 5
minutes
4.
Turn off heat
and add 30 tea bags or 8 tablespoons of loose leaf tea. Tea can be
white, green, black, herbal, wild-gathered or mixture of all of those.
5. Let
the tea
steep for 15 minutes
6.
Remove tea bags
and let cool, or let cool and then strain through sieve to remove tea
leaves.
7.
Pour cooled
liquid into wide-mouthed gallon glass jar
8. Add
Kombucha
Culture and 1 cup of already-made Kombucha Tea or 1/2 cup of apple
cider vinegar as a starter
9.
Cover with a
loosely-woven cotton fabric that will allow air to get in through the
weave but will keep out bugs.
10.
Let set
undisturbed for about a week, or whenever it tastes good to you. You
can start tasting it at about day 5 to see if it is done to your taste.
In some temperatures, circumstances, amount of starter
. Reducing Caffeine
Caffeine can be reduced by using decaffeinated tea.
You can make your own reduced-caffeine tea by soaking a teabag in hot
water for 30 seconds, discard (or drink) the tea and use the teabag to
make the kombucha
Herbal tisanes/infusions can be substituted for tea.
You
do not need camilla sinensis tea or caffeine to make kombucha. There
may be some need for the tannin in tea leaves, but this can be found in
many other tree leaves like oak, or grape leaves. If you use a wide
variety of herbal and wild-foraged leaves for your tea, you will get
all the nutrients necessary to make a healthy kombucha from those
leaves plus some of the trace minerals that will not be found in
commercially grown teas because growers don't let their leaves rot on
the ground to replenish the soil as wild trees do.
. Fast brew method
Brew
kombucha in a glass jar or glass-lined thermos. Cover with a
loose-woven cloth. Remove up to half of the
finished kombucha and then top up with sweet tea (7 parts tea to 1 part
sugar syrup, sugar to be made with 2 part sugar to 1 part water). Leave
for 12 hours. Often this is done by drinking the tea during the day, up
to
half of what is in the container, and re-filling it to let it brew
overnight. Always leave some air space at the top. As long as the
bottle is going to opened no longer than every 12 hours it is safe to
cap the bottle, otherwise cover with an airlock.
.Continuous Brew Method
Take
a 1 quart thermos, flask or other container. Place a kombucha
matrix in it and fill it with kombucha tea. During the day,
take out a cup and drink it whenever you like. Once you have poured out
your cup of kombucha, make a cup of sweet tea and let it cool down to
luke warm or tepid. Use it to replace the
kombucha taken from the flask. If you need more than a cup of kombucha
a day, make as many quarts as you can find containers for. In warm
weather, you may be able to take a pint a day and still get fully
brewed kombucha the next day. Keep the
container(s) covered with a loose-woven cotton cloth. If you use a
covered thermos, be certain that you open it at least once a day to
prevent build-up of gases.
Some people prefer using
a large jar
with a tap or spigot to make continuous kombucha, while others feel the
problem of the kombucha mushroom material always getting stuck in the
spigot isn't worth it. Therefore, I don't recommend it, but here is the
method should you wish to use it:
Large
container
method:
Get
a 1-gallon glass jar with
plastic spigot/tap (often sold as "sun tea" jars).
Make your first batch of
kombucha
using the method described above but
increasing the amounts by 3x, or use the recipe/instructions for making
a gallon of tea below.
After kombucha has brewed
to your
taste, draw off kombucha from the
bottom from the spigot at the bottom of the jar
Add new, luke-warm or
cooled sweetened
tea in the same amount as
kombucha you have drawn off. If using granulated sugar, add 1/3 cup per
quart to the tea when it is hot, stir until dissolved and allow it to
cool off before putting it in the kombucha.
Wait 24 hours for every
quart of
kombucha you draw off and replace with
tea and sugar, before drawing more kombucha out.
Never let the jar get
below half full.
. Kombucha Manna Drops or Mushroom
Extract Drops
Cut kombucha matrix ("scoby") into as small pieces as possible with a
sturdy kitchen scissors. Put in juice extracto and turn on until juice
is extracted. To make a similar product with a blender, put pieces into
blender and add kombucha tea as needed to be able to puree the matrix
pieces. Filter through a cotton cloth.
. Kombucha Smoothie
plain
yogurt
freshly ground flax seeds
vanilla extract
frozen bananas
frozen plums
kombucha
Place all in blender in
proportion to
taste and blend on high.
. Symptoms of
Detoxification
Kombucha
is a detoxifier,
meaning it dissolves toxins in the body which then need to be flushed
out of the body. Some people will experience negative reactions to
drinking kombucha, even if they started off feeling better when taking
it. You need to drink about 5 times as much water as kombucha and limit
yourself to a few ounces a day when you first start off. If you
experience stuffed-up sinuses, nausea, ears feel bubbly, tired, aches
and pains after taking kombucha for awhile, you may be undergoing
detoxification. It may feel like an allergy or mild stomach bug. Keep
taking a few ounces of kombucha a day and drinking lots more water
until these toxins have been flushed out of the system. If you can
handle learning how to make another health drink at this time, you may
find that drinking beet
kvass
will help smooth things over during this
time. Taking extra minerals
may help also.
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. Sources for kombucha matrix
You
will need a kombucha yeast and bacteria matrix, commonly called a
scoby. You can order it online from sites such as
http://www.kombucha.org/ , or search on the keyword kombucha and choose
your own site. You can also use a mother of vinegar to start a
kombucha, so you can purchase a bottle of Bragg's Raw Apple Cider
vinegar and use that to start a kombucha matrix. It will take a while
as you will need to start with a small batch and increase it.
to make
a
kombucha matrix with a mother of vinegar matrix, or with a
bottle of raw vinegar (i.e., Braggs Raw Apple Cider Vinegar), make a
tea and mix with sugar as above, add it to the vinegar or pour on top
of a mother of vinegar mat, cover with a loosely woven cloth as above
and set it in a cupboard for a month. When a film or matrix forms on
the top, that is a kombucha matrix and can be used to make kombucha.
If
you make wine and have a batch turn to vinegar with a little plug at
the top of the bottle, that, too, will make kombucha.
Make
it from a bottle of store-bought raw kombucha. Put a pint of
commercial raw kt in a glass jar, cover with a cloth secured with a
rubber band and store in a dark, out-of-the-way place for 3-4 weeks or
until a matrix develops at the top.
Truly
Cultured Rejuvenating
Taste, Health and Community With Naturally Fermented Foods by Nancy
Bentley
The
Yoga of Eating
by Charles Eisenstein
Sacred
and Herbal Healing Beers by Stephen
Harr Buhner
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