Growing Your Own Kombucha Scoby

I've written before about how to brew kombucha - a wonderfully fizzy probiotic rich drink - but, to brew kombucha you need a "mother."

The easiest way to get a mother scoby (scoby stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) is to get a "baby" from a friend. But if that isn't possible - and it wasn't for me - then you can grow your own; here's how!

1) Place two black, caffeinated tea bags and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a glass bowl. Add two cups of boiling water and allow to steep for ten minutes.

2) Remove the tea bags and stir to ensure that the sugar is fully disolved. Allow to cool a bit - it should be touchable without pain.

3) Pour in a bottle of raw (nothing added) kombucha from the store into your tea. Cover your mixture and allow to steep for about two weeks.

4) In two weeks, remove your scoby and use it to make your future batches of kombucha.

** Reminder: the scoby will grow a "baby" (another scoby attached to the original) everytime it is used to brew kombucha. Thus, more mature scobys will be quite thick. Your scoby, while young, may look more like a thin sheet of mucus than the typically depicted mushroom - that's okay!

Shared with the HomeAcre Hop.