Recipe for Herbal Kombucha Tea

Ingredients for one gallon-size brew:

1. Kombucha culture
2. 2 cups of “starter tea” from the previous kombucha brew, if no starter tea is available, use 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar
3. 5-6 tea bags or 4-6 Tablespoons of herbal loose tea made from leaves rather than flowers. I avoid teas with added flavorings. If you use Black tea you can use less than 4-6 Tablespoons.
4. one cup sugar
5. 3 ½ quarts of filtered water

Supplies needed:

One gallon or larger glass container, jar or bowl
or a food grade plastic bowl may be used, either number 1 or 2 in the triangle on the bottom.

Clean cloth, paper towel or coffee filter to fit over fermenting container and a large rubber band to secure if needed.

A warm quiet spot, (does not need to be dark)

White vinegar to clean utensils. If you need to clean the culture, let it sit in vinegar for a little while.

Boil water: bring water to the boiling point and let it boil a minute or so.
Add tea bags or loose tea in a strainer.
I let the tea steep about 30 minutes.
Remove tea

Add the cup of sugar and stir to dissolve.

Let it come to room temperature (about 2-4 hours) or overnight

Put the room temperature tea and sugar into your jar or bowl. If it is too hot it will damage the culture.
Add the starter tea
Add the kombucha culture.
Cover with the cloth or paper towel or filter and leave alone.

The entire brewing cycle can take up to 14 days. Usually the tea is ready to drink about day 5. You should see a light film starting to cover the top of the tea surface. I ladle out a bit to taste it. If it’s still very sweet, it’s not ready. Sometimes it has some carbonation. This is fine. Sometimes bubbles form in the culture and the culture looks bumpy and strange. It’s okay.

Start drinking one tablespoon at a time, on an empty stomach. Build up the amount you drink slowly, as your body suggests.
This drink isn’t right for everybody but if it’s good for you, your body may start to crave it.

It’s a powerful detoxifier so you don’t want to start drinking too much in the beginning. Let your body start its detox process in a slow and gentle way.

I’ve settled on drinking about 1/4 -1/2 cup 1-3 times a day 20 minutes before a meal. Anymore than that really feels like too much.

It is suggested that once the culture is in the tea, no metal should come in contact with the brew. I use a plastic ladle.

Some people strain the tea before they drink it because sometimes there’s some squidley stuff floating in it. The stuff is part of the brew and can be drunk.

If you don’t finish the brew after 10-12 days it will become very vinegary and for some, undrinkable. This can be used for salad dressings and marinades.

Always save the last 2 cups for the next batch.

The film that forms on the top is the offspring of the culture. You can use this to start a new batch when it is substantial enough or you can just leave it attached. To detach it from the culture, with clean hands pick up the culture and peel the film off. If it is too small to start a new batch, store it in a glass jar with 1-2 cups of fresh tea and a paper towel cover. Keep adding new films as you get them. You should add fresh tea every 14 days. After a while the filmy pieces will meld into one new culture that can be used to start a new batch.

At this point I always have 2 different batches going. This is enough for me. I put my extras in a jar and save them until I have someone brave enough to try it.

Purchase Kombucha Culture from Cultures for Health!

Kombucha Tea and Sugar Addiction

I started drinking Kombucha tea a few years ago and immediately noticed positive changes in my health. It seemed as if my digestive system was waking up. It cleared out my sinuses and reduced my sugar cravings. Even my hormone imbalance seemed to clear up!

Kombucha tea is a fermented drink said to strengthen the immune system by repopulating the digestive tract with live probiotics and enzymes that grow during the fermentation process.

When I first learned about it I was hesitant to make it because the recipe called for sugar and black tea, two foods I had stayed away from for decades. I was told that I had to make it this way or the benefits would be minimized. Having recovered from candidiasis I was concerned about drinking something with sugar in it. I was also unable to consume caffeine, (kept me up at night and made my hands shake) and was concerned about the caffeine in the tea. I went ahead and made it with herbal mint tea and organic sugar. It came out great and I felt sure the drink was plenty potent! I did not get any candida symptoms as long as I drank it in small amounts.

After making this lovely gentle potion for a few years I finally took a sip of a commercial kombucha drink, made with black tea. That one sip felt like a shock to my system. I knew my gentle herbal kombucha tea was right for me.

Recently, a few people expressed to me that they had been drinking Kombucha tea for awhile, felt good results but then got to a point where their bodies didn’t want it anymore. I was surprised to hear this as my body was craving a little every day.

Then, this summer, all of a sudden, my body didn’t want it! I tried a few sips, but no, it just wasn’t right anymore. I wonder if the kombucha did for me what I needed at the time and then I simply didn’t need it anymore.

I use a variety of lacto fermented products and I find myself craving different ones at different times. I trusted my body when it said it no longer needed Kombucha.

One of the major concerns about Kombucha is the large amount of sugar used for the fermentation. I believe that most of the sugar is used during the fermentation stage but I also believe that if one is extremely sensitive to sugar, candida, diabetes, IBS, it may not be the right drink.

I’ve also been thinking about some of my students who have had a difficult time “giving up” sugar. I’ve been through this myself. We are trying to heal illnesses such as candida, IBS, chronic fatigue, hypoglycemia, and fibromyalgia. We cut out the sugar and begin to feel deprived. Then it’s easy to binge on sugar and carbs exacerbating our symptoms.

I'm beginning to see Kombucha tea as being an important stepping stone for some people making the shift away from sugar. If someone is trying to minimize sugar intake but has occasional uncontrollable bingeing it seems that it could be more beneficial to drink the kombucha tea as an interim step. They could sip some tea when the craving for dessert shows up. They could sip some more when everyone is having a soda. They could put a slice of lemon in it when everyone is drinking overly sweet lemonade. This may satisfy the sugar fix while beginning the healing of their digestive and immune systems enabling the person to stay away from ice cream, baked goods and candy. As the bodily systems begin to return to a higher state of health the feeling of being sugar deprived could become a distant memory.

Purchase Kombucha Culture from Cultures for Health!

Purchase my Intestinal Recovery Recipe Book at www.glutenfreesourdough.com

Lacto Fermented Cucumber Pickles by Sharon A. Kane

Ingredients:
4 small cucumbers
1 medium onion
2 pinches black mustard seed
8-10 black peppercorns
2 cloves garlic
1 dill flower head or a small handful of dill leaves
A few thoroughly washed leaves: horseradish, raspberry, cabbage, bok choy or Swiss Chard

For the brine:
2 quarts filtered or spring water
Pure salt, kosher or sea salt, with no additives

Equipment:
Large pot for boiling water
1 wide mouth quart canning jar
1 canning lid and 1 canning ring
1 rock that fits easily through the mouth of the canning jar. Garden rocks are great. Look for a rock about 2-3 inches in diameter and not more than 1 inch high. Scrub it with a brush, run through dishwasher or wash thoroughly by hand.
Small pot for sterilizing the canning lid, ring and rock
Something to press the cucumbers into the jar: a crab mallet, a wooden food grinder pusher, etc.
Wide mouth funnel (optional) for filling the jar
Ladle

Directions:
Measure 2 quarts of water into a pot and bring to a boil for 4 minutes
Let cool uncovered for ½ hour
Add 3 tablespoons of salt and stir to dissolve
Let brine come to room temperature, (may take up to 4 hours)

Wash quart canning jar in very hot water and rinse thoroughly.
Put canning lid, ring and rock in small pot, cover with tap water and boil for 4 minutes. Let water cool a bit and pour off water.
Let lid, ring and rock cool while you assemble the vegetable ingredients in the jar.

On bottom of canning jar put:
Dill
Peppercorns
Mustard seed
Peeled and coarsely chopped garlic

Wash cucumbers and cut ends off
Slice into discs about ½ inch thick
Start filling jar with cucumber discs and when the cucumbers reach about 2 inches high, use the food pusher to press them down. This bruises the vegetables and gets the juices flowing while reducing air pockets in the final product.
Chop a small amount of onion and put a thin layer of chopped onion on top of the cukes and press with the food pusher.

Continue layering cukes and onion in this manner until approximately 2 inches of empty space is left on the top of the jar. Use the food pusher one last time to press the vegetables.

Take your leaves, (remember, they can be horseradish, raspberry, cabbage, bok choy, or Swiss chard.
Remove any hard ribs, leaving pieces of leaf approximately the size of the opening of the wide mouth jar.
Take a leaf and lay it over the vegetables. With your fingers, gently press it to the edges of the jar. Use 3-5 more leaves in this manner, overlapping each other so that the vegetables are totally covered. We’re applying this leaf layer to prevent vegetables from floating up to the top of the brine where they could get moldy.

Take your cooled rock and place it on top of the leaf layer.
Start ladling brine into the jar to the level of the rock.
Tilt the jar slightly to release air bubbles. You can also push down on the rock a little to release air bubbles.
Add more brine to cover the rock leaving 1 inch of space between the top of the brine and the top of the jar.
Let this sit for a little while, about 10 minutes to allow any other air bubbles to come up. Add more brine if necessary, to one inch from the top of the jar.

With a paper towel:
wipe the top of the jar to dry off any brine
wipe the lid and ring and cover the jar with the lid and ring.

Fermentation:
Let the jar sit in a quiet place for 3 days at room temperature, about 69-73.
Then place in the refrigerator.
Pickles will be ready in about 3-7 days.

When you open the jar for tasting, sniff the jar as soon as you open it.
It should smell simultaneously sweet, sour, salty and fresh.
Remove the rock and the leaf layer, (discard).
Take a spoon and sip a small amount of the brine.
It should taste pleasant.
If it tastes good, taste a small piece of the cucumber.
Again, it should taste pleasant.

Use about 2 tablespoons of lactofermented vegetables at every meal to gently add probiotics to your diet. You may want to start with a smaller amount, like 1 teaspoon and gradually build up.

Signs that the batch is spoiled:
If it explodes out of the jar when you open it discard it immediately.
If it smells rank, vinegary or like wine it may be spoiled.
If it is slimy, or stings your tongue you should discard it.

Don’t take chances, when in doubt, throw it out!

After the initial 3 day fermentation at room temperature, all lactofermented vegetables should be stored in the refrigerator because they are live foods and will overferment very quickly at room temperature. In the old days people had cool root cellars that were perfect for cold storage but most of us will do best with the fridge.

These cucumber pickles will be good for 1-2 months.

FYI: The basic recipe for making brine is 1½ tablespoons salt per quart of water or 6 tablespoons per gallon.

Learn how to use lacto-fermentation for a variety of vegetables through the season!