Kombucha recipe
This article is about kombucha recipe fermented tea. For the East Asian drink “konbu-cha”, made from dried seaweed, see kelp tea.
For the tea tree mushroom used in Chinese cooking, see Cyclocybe aegerita. Kombucha is thought to have originated in China, where the drink is traditional. By the early 20th century it had spread to Russia, then other parts of Eastern Europe and Germany. The microbial populations in a SCOBY vary. Kombucha most likely originated in the Bohai Sea district in China. The drink was consumed in Russia and from there entered the rest of Europe.
Prior to 2015, some commercially available kombucha brands were found to contain alcohol content exceeding this threshold, sparking the development of new testing methods. Webster’s Dictionary maintains that the use of kombucha in English likely stems from the misapplication of Japanese words: kombucha, kobucha ‘tea made from kelp’, kobu, konbu ‘kelp’, and cha ‘tea’. English speakers to designate fermented tea due to confusion or because the thick gelatinous film produced by the kombucha culture was thought to resemble seaweed. The mixed, presumably symbiotic culture has been further described as being lichenous, in accord with the reported presence of the known lichenous natural product usnic acid, though as of 2015, no report appears indicating the standard cyanobacterial species of lichens in association with kombucha fungal components.
Kombucha is made by adding the kombucha culture into a broth of sugared tea. The sugar serves as a nutrient for the SCOBY that allows for bacterial growth in the tea. The alcohol content of kombucha is usually less than 0. The concentration of alcohol specifically ethanol increases initially but then begins to decrease when acetic acid bacteria utilize it to produce acetic acid. Kombucha can be prepared at home or commercially.
Kombucha is made by dissolving sugar in non-chlorinated boiling water. Tea leaves are steeped in the hot sugar water and discarded. The sweetened tea is cooled and the SCOBY culture is added. The mixture is then poured into a sterilized beaker along with previously fermented kombucha tea to lower the pH, this technique is known as “backslopping”. A new “daughter” SCOBY will form on the surface of the tea to the diameter of the container.
After fermentation is completed, the SCOBY is removed and stored along with a small amount of the newly fermented tea. Commercially bottled kombucha became available in the late 1990s. In 2010, elevated alcohol levels were found in many bottled kombucha products, leading retailers including Whole Foods to temporarily pull the drinks from store shelves. 350 million of which was earned by Millennium Products, Inc. In 2014, the companies that make and sell kombucha formed a trade organization, Kombucha Brewers International. As of 2021, the drink had some popularity in India’s National Capital Region, partly due to its success in the west. Indian kombucha makers include Bhu Kombucha, Stoked Kombucha and Toyo Kombucha.
As of 2019, some commercial kombucha producers sell “hard kombucha” with an alcohol content of over 5 percent. Many people drink kombucha tea for its purported health benefits. These include claims for treating AIDS, aging, anorexia nervosa, arthritis, atherosclerosis, cancer, constipation, and diabetes. Reports of adverse effects related to kombucha consumption are rare, but may be underreported, according to the 2003 review.
