more on kombucha

So far today has been one of those plant and fungus kind of days. I started a new batch of kombucha and decided to bury the extra mother out in the garden with the kale and sweet peas and this turned into a lovely time gardening. The sun is shining here and it is gorgeous outside! I tidied up the kale and sweet pea area and put up some stakes because the sweet peas that reseeded themselves last fall are now getting tall enough to want to climb on something. The kale is looking good and I noticed the poppies are coming up as well. There is a ton of chamomile coming up every which way. One plant in particular looks nearly ready to bloom. The chard I put in last November has been thankfully covered by some fennel that fell over (why it is sometimes better to not clean everything up) and making a comeback from the snow and doing well with the extra cold weather we have been having the last couple of days.

So I just tasted my kombucha and I have to say it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. It is not, however, something I imagine drinking with any great regularity at this stage, particularly when I have some lovely stuff in the refrigerator that I look forward to drinking every day. So I am off to read about how to fix up your kombucha to make it tastier. I ordered a book from the library by Harald Tietz, Kombucha: The Miracle Fungus. He is apparently an expert on kombucha as well as a huge fan. And the happy herbalist has quite a bit to say about how to help your kombucha taste um more palatable and many ideas on what you can do with it as well (add it to a bath, soak your pet in it...) I was reading this, also at the happy herbalist, about using different teas to make kombucha, although I think adding things after the kombucha has fermented is going to have more of an impact on its flavor, based on how this kombucha tastes. I taste nothing like black tea and sugar when I drink it. It is a lot more reminiscent of lemon juice to be honest.

OK so here are some photos of the mother and the kombucha once the mother was removed.



Top of mother; underside of mother- you can see another mother there, round and darker than the rest and that is the mother I used for the next batch I set up today. The last photo is the actual kombucha to drink, in a glass bread dish that *it* was fermented in.

As I said above, I buried the other mother out in the garden with the kale and sweet peas. I feel conflicted about this but let's be honest here, I can't keep all the mothers growing indefinitely and out with the plants seems like a lovely alternative to even the compost pile at this point. It is winter, after all.

I wanted to say too that I am getting used to the smell of the kombucha as it sits here next to me and it is like once you know that is how it smells, it isn't as bad, if that makes sense. I am thinking of adding some pear juice to it? And maybe I won't ferment the next batch quite as long. I erred on the side of caution this time because I wanted it to definitely be acidic enough. Now that I know it is definitely acidic enough I am going to taste it sooner next time.