"Bucha bucha girl. I am bucha girl." Mama taught me to sing this in the tune of "Macho macho man" we giggle and laugh while we gather the supplies for Kombucha. Tea bags come first. Mama says we need five. She turns her back to organize the counter. When she turns back around, I have five tea bags sitting on the table. I see her proud shocked face, "You counted five out by yourself! Look at you practicing your counting skills!" She reminds me that we are done counting the bags as I'm reaching for more. "Can you get them ready for me?" She demonstrates with one, I do the rest. "Here, nother one for you, Mama. You put in pot? Cooking bucha?"
Mama has boiled water for five minutes to sterilize it. Turning off the burner, we stir in a cup of sugar. Next, we put in eight tea bags (because I am just learning to count, Mama only had me do five, while she already grabbed the first three). While the tea brews, Mama grabs the Kombucha that has been fermenting for 8 days.
It takes a while for the tea to brew and then drop down to room temperature. During that time, we bottle up the Kombucha that we have had sitting for a week. These are all our supplies. At home, we would be using glass bottles, but here we have to deal with what is cost effective, available, and recyclable as we will be heading home very very very soon. The glass bowl is to hold the "scoby" and 2 cups of the fermented brew. Not pictured is the measuring cup with a spout that Mama uses to pour the Bucha into the plastic bottles. I was playing with it and she forgot.
We put our flavors into the bottles, frozen blueberries in two bottles and fresh ginger in the rest. Daddy and I like the ginger best and Mama loves the blueberry. Then Mama fills them up with the fermented Kombucha and we store them at room temperature for 2 or 3 days to carbonate. The blueberry ones usually carbonate the fastest. You have to remember to burp the bottles periodically so they don't explode (we have never had this happen and we burp them once a day or so). One upside to using plastic bottles, is you can tell when they need to burp by the firmness of the bottle. Once they are carbonated to our liking, which you can tell based on how many bubbles are produced from burping them, we put them in the refrigerator.
I sit right beside Mama matching up the tops to bottles, while she does all the "dirty work". She doesn't trust me to not spill it all, yet. Talk to me in a couple months, maybe I'll be doing some pouring then.
For step by step instructions and measurements, go here: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Kombucha-Tea
Myths and Truths about Kombucha go here: http://www.phoenixhelix.com/2013/03/25/kombucha-myths-vs-truths/
Come to our house and try some soon! Mama loves to share :)
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