New to the craft

topic posted Sun, July 5, 2009 - 7:17 PM by  David
Share/Save/Bookmark
Advertisement
I am in bottling my 3rd batch of kombucha. I have been really fortunate with my results so far, and have begun to experiment with adding flavors, or juices, again with really nice results. My first 2 ferments came out well using a high quality chinese black tea called Gold Silk. On the batch I am in the process of bottling I used 2/3 black tea(Gold Silk) to 1/3 green tea(Dragon Well). I am really excited to see what the differences might bring out? I am doing a "batch" with white tea(Silver Needle) this time.

Any veterans out there that would be interested in sharing some wisdom from their experience with the various teas, I would really enjoy hearing about the characteristics associated with the different teas.

Thanks!
posted by:
David
Chicago
Advertisement
Advertisement
  • Re: New to the craft

    Fri, July 10, 2009 - 9:28 AM
    We have made a batch with all Yerba mate. It was delicious, but took longer than with black tea. I have also heard that the higher tannin content of the Organic Chinese Black tea is an essential ingredient to the magical* properties of KT. I like to mix the two.
    One thing to take into consideration is that we also were steeping the black tea in water around 210 degress for 5-6 minutes.
    The Yerba mate was steeped at around 180 degrees for 3-4 minutes.
    Steeping it longer and at a higher temp will pprobably increase the tannin level.
  • Re: New to the craft

    Tue, July 14, 2009 - 1:59 PM
    Just use cheap tea in the Kombucha. The Scoby doesn't care. I use the $1 box of tea from the discount store and it produces a very nice Kombucha.


    Also, as others have said, just brew TEA and add the other stuff when you bottle it - like ginger, chai, etc. Herbs often have anti-microbial properties - they will kill the scoby.

Recent topics in "Kombucha Tea"

Topic Author Replies Last Post
My SCOBY has a gender Jessy 2 Yesterday, 11:12 AM
scoby question: yeast strands and temp trevor 1 January 5, 2010
Natural Mystic Magazine 0 December 23, 2009
LOTS of bubbles.... how am I doing here? Bobby 5 December 23, 2009