Over the holidays my uncle came to visit from Los Angles. Within a few minutes of arriving, he handed me what at first glance looked to be a Snapple. But it said Synergy on the label, and the liquid inside was gold-colored had a bunch of flecks floating around in it. "This is going to blow your mind," he said. "It's called kombucha."
Having drunk kombucha every day for a week now I can say it hasn't blown my mind so much as confused it. I can't decide whether I like it.
Kombucha is essentially a tea with a yeast-like fungus that causes it to ferment. Instead of turning alcoholic, the fermentation releases carbonation and supposedly a lot of vitamins and good bacteria.
I first heard of it a month ago when the LA Times did a story on its popularity among movie stars. My uncle got me thinking about it again. When I went to Whole Foods to find some (it hasn't made the jump to regular grocery stores yet) I was struck by how much space kombucha has been given. Whole Foods stocks three brands and 25 flavors, including passionberry to guava goddess. Clearly, it thinks this drink is about to take off.
There are a lot of reasons why it could. It's low in calories (30 per eight ounces), provides energy and has nutritional properties. It's been described as Starbucks for healthy people. Except for those lingering questions about how healthy
it really is. It contains a lot of bacteria that
are claimed to help everything from digestion to detoxification of the
liver, but none have been proven.
Then there's the taste.
My
uncle has been introducing kombucha to everybody he meets and he says nobody likes it at first. The flavor has been
described as sulfury, like wet feet, but most people think it tastes too much like
vinegar. I thought it tasted like
vinegar does when you're high on miracle fruit -- or, like a shot of
vinegar dumped into a glass of half champagne and half seltzer water.
It may not sound good but the bitterness grows on you. Fans of malt and
balsamic vinegar will love kombucha if they ever give it a
second try. My friend tried one sip, spit it out and refused to drink
any more.
Then there's the price. The cheapest brand at Whole
Foods costs $2.99 for 16 ounces, about the price of a
cappuccino. That's a lot to pay for what is essentially tea, which is
why homemade kombucha has really taken off.
At the center of
kombucha is the scoby or mother, the two nicknames for the massive
blob-like organic mass. You can buy a mother on eBay or at a health food
store or you can grow your own from a normal bottle of kombucha.
My
uncle now brews his by the gallon. He learned how to do it from watching videos on
YouTube and suggested videos from the lady below:
I'm still trying to decide how much I like it.
It seems like it's always one taste away from growing on me. -- Owen Morris
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If your Kombucha tastes bad, it's because you are not doing it right.
If commercial products taste like wet feet, then, "they" did something wrong to it, for commercial purposes, I suppose.
Kombucha is supposed to taste very good: like good apple cider, if made with black tea, and can mimick the best champagnes if made with green tea and bottled, corked and caved for a couple of months.
It is a very sensitive culture. For starters, there is too much liquid in that jar. Kombucha is an aerobic culture, that really needs its air. So, the height of the liquis should never exeed the diameter of the jar. Wider than high is better.
This is imperative, or your culture will not have enough oxygen and the flavour will gradually be worse, to downright terrible if you were to have the height of liquid be 2 times the diameter of the jar.
Then, however strange it may seem:
-First: only use a piece of natural fabric to cover the container. This means: no nylon stocking or any other synthetic fabric. I don't know why, but this impairs the result, thus the taste. The paper filter is not good: doesn't allow for enough air exchange.
**Also: you need to hold that piece of fabric with a good elastic, or your kombucha will soon be contaminated by fruitflies, which will turn it into sour waste... ;-b...
-Secondly: never wear any metal on your hands and arms when harvesting the kombucha or preparing your next batch. The next batch will not ferment as well and will not taste as good.
So: for best taste and best biological activity: harvest after 6, maybe 7 days. The sugar level is already low at that time, suitable for most people. After that, it will gradually turn more sour. After 2 weeks, it is almost pure vinegar, unpalatable to me, and the biolological activity is really not at its peak.
To bottle and cork it, you don't need to add anything: no sugar, no fruit at all, and one week after corking the taste will have improved again and it will have recovered its fizziness, to the point it can pop its cork. So, don't store it on its side or you might have a nice mess with a couple of bottles pouring out... And carry it carefully!... It is just a very good, and incredibly healthy, bubbly.
It is the best magical potion, as far as I know. Kefir is good, I have used it for years, but what Kombucha will do for you, if you have good kombucha, is almost a miracle. Plus, a real pleasure.
you can make kombucha more to taste through practice. the taste is arrived at based mostly on the time/temperature/humidity of the brew. it can be anywhere from fruity to almost straight vinegar. we've found it to be an excellent home health care supplement, as well as a refreshing beverage. thanks. best to all.
Ahh i've tried miracle fruit! Definitely a taste-twisting experience for sure. Lemons taste like candy!
I'm thinking it's not so much the flavor that will bother people, but the "blobs." Being unable to come up with a better description, my kombucha-lovin' friend hesitatingly likened the experience to drinking bits of mucus.
I tried it when I was a kid, it's a fad that comes and goes and some people swear it healed them. My Mom makes a similar fermented milk product-kefir and says that it makes her feel good.
Half a bottle a day keeps the laxative away. So, really you're only spending about $1.50 per serving. If you're drinking GT Dave's (which I believe is the "Synergy") the cranberry flavor is the way to go.
Kombucha is a little hard on the modern palate since everything we eat and drink seems to contain sugar. I've been making homemade kombucha for a coupla years. Try adding a slice of ginger and 2 Tbsp of fruit juice at the time of bottling. This creates a secondary fermentation inside the bottle so virtually no sugar remains but a fruit flavor does. Blueberry juice is the BEST!
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