First things first, I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes! You all are so awesome. I had a really great birthday, but didn’t do anything too crazy, just hung out with the fam.
And also, if you take a peek up in the URL box, you’ll notice that “.wordpress” is no longer attached. Now it’s just http://www.atablespoonofliz.com. And that makes me feel really special. If you type in http://www.atablespoonofliz.wordpress.com, you’ll still be brought here, but now it’s shorter, so it’s easier to type!
Now, onto business. This is a series of posts that I’ve been planning and really looking forward to writing for a while. Recently, (Ok, like a good while ago) I bought all the things needed to make Kombucha. I hate buying it in the store, as it can be really expensive, and it’s actually really cheap to make!
But I do have to make a disclaimer: I’m not a kombucha expert. If you make kombucha, or know how to, and you see me doing something wrong or different from you, please let me know! I’m new at this, and would love some advice!
For those of you who don’t know, Kombucha is a fermented, carbonated tea. It is said to have a ton of health benefits. It is said to energize the mind, and give you more energy and focus. And it’s delicious!
Step one is sterilization. You need to make sure everything you’re using and everything that is going to be in contact with the tea/scooby is clean. You can do this by washing them, then swirling vinegar around the insides of your bottle/ spoons, whatever. Then let them air dry.
You don’t even need a lot to make it. Vinegar, to sterilize, as said earlier, a large glass jar, a measuring cup/spoons, sugar, tea, a small cloth to cover the lid, and a rubber band. For the tea, I just used basic black tea. I think that’s the most commonly used tea for kombucha, but I could be wrong.
You also need a scoby, or mother, or culture. There are a bunch of names for them. This is what one looks like:
When handling the scoby, you should make sure you have clean hands. Just to be save, I put some vinegar on my hands before picking it up. The last thing I need to to kill myself from contaminated kombucha. What a lame way to die.
So that’s all you need. I don’t want to write the whole process in one post, as it would be super long, so I’m spreading it out over five days. Stay tuned tomorrow on how to actually brew the tea, and starting the fermentation product!
Do you like kombucha? Have you ever made it? If you have, do you have any tips? haha
