Growing a Kombucha Mother

I was recently at the health food store and I was looking at the items that they had in their digestive health section, I was looking for a herbal tea concentrate that I am very familiar and used to purchase, but now I have moved and this local health food store didn't carry it. I found a bottle of Kombucha, and thought I would give it a try. I was actually on my way to work so I tried a little bit of it, and it reminded me a lot of Apple Cider Vinegar, then as I was watching some Health Youtube videos that I subscribe to I saw a video in the related topics on Kombucha and I watched it and then spent far more time than I should have watching videos on how to brew your own Kombucha and how to grow your own mother etc. I watched a whole bunch.. it was like the whole world of Kombucha had suddenly opened up!

I realized that I could grow my own Kombucha mother and brew the tea at home. And as I got so excited about how I could do this I forgot to even read about what it does and what it is good for! Ha! There isn't really a lot of information about it, although the main thing that I was interested in was its affects for your digestive health, it is known to promote healthy flora in the digestive tract but there are so many other benefits which can be explained more thoroughly here.  (Please check it out, it is amazing!)

Nothing scientific, which doesn't really concern me, the best things for you are natural things that usually haven't been tested. So I thought I would start making my own Kombucha which really is fermented tea that is raw and still active. Here is how it started:

You will need a large glass vessel (this jar is perfect, but anything like it will work - must be glass though!), a stainless steel pot (cannot be aluminum), a wooden spoon, 3/4 of a gallon of water, 1 cup of sugar, 5 tea bags (I used 3 black and 2 green), a bottle of Kombucha, a piece of cheesecloth and an elastic.

Put the water into the pot and bring to a boil. Turn the heat off and stir in 1 cup of sugar, you want to make sure that it all dissolves. The Kombucha lives off of Caffeine and Sugar so you want it all to dissolve.

Then add the tea bags and let it steep for a while. Everywhere I saw said about 5 minutes, but I just left the bags in until the whole mixture had cooled. 

Once it has cooled, remove the tea bags and add to the jar. It was warmer then room temperature when I did this, but I did let it cool for several hours. 

Next add your Kombucha, I purchased this from a health food store, and I used about half of a 16 oz bottle, which I had left sitting out with the lid off on my counter for several days. I did this because I read that a mother will grow right from that, but after a couple of days there were threads of cultures but not a film like I was looking for, and I thought that it probably couldn't really grow without any food so I did all of this. And it is working (after only 2 days there is already a film where my SCOBY is growing)

Then fasten a piece of cheese cloth with a rubber band and put it in a fairly warm place that will get absolutely no direct sunlight. Some people say a dark cupboard, I put it on top of my fridge for the added warmth. It can be exposed to light, just not direct sunlight, no windowsills for the Kombucha!

Then just let it hang out. I will update you on how mine is coming, and also I will document how it benefits my health so please check back to see how it is going!