Upcycled Creations 2.27

We're now cultivating KombuchaTea!
Kombucha is a living health drink made by fermenting tea and sugar with the kombucha culture. The result can taste like something between sparkling apple cider and champagne, depending on what kind of tea you use. It's not what you'd imagine fermented tea to taste like. (Seedsofhealth.co.uk).

The Kombucha Culture
The Kombucha culture looks like a beige or white rubbery pancake. It's often called a 'scoby' which stands for ' symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts.The culture is placed in sweetened black or green tea and turns a bowl full of sweet tea into a bowl full of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and health-giving organic acids.

As the Kombucha culture digests the sugar it produces a range of organic acids like glucuronic acid, gluconic acid, lactic acid, acetic acid, butyric acid, malic acid and usnic acid; vitamins, particularly B vitamins and vitamin C; as well as amino acids, enzymes. And of course there are all the benefits of the probiotic microorganisms themselves. The Kombucha culture is a biochemical powerhouse in your kitchen.

You might wonder if fermenting tea with yeasts would produce an alcoholic beverage. It's a good question. The yeasts do produce alcohol but the bacteria in the culture turn the alcohol to organic acids. Only minute quantities of alcohol, typically 1% by volume remains in the kombucha brew.

With every brew you make the kombucha forms a new layer or scoby on the surface of the liquid.

References
Seedsofhealth.co.uk:
The Ubiquitous Co-Enzyme UDPGlucuronic Acid Detoxifying Agent in Kombucha Tea? By Norbert Hoffmann.
The History and Spread of Kombucha By James Roche.
Kombucha Tea for Your Health and Healing.
The Fascination of Kombucha by Günther W. Frank