Yes, I’ve joined the kombucha craze. Why? Well, because I like the taste and it’s a healthier alternative than pop (soda). Actually, kombucha being fermented tea, it is rich in probiotics and aids in digestion.
So not only does it taste yummy, it helps your tummy. (I know! I’m totally corny.) Since I made the jump to self-employment, I’ve made a conscious choice to reconnect with food. I’ve also made a choice to learn for pleasure.
What I was less excited about was paying $6-10 a bottle to get my kombucha fix. When I started looking at “starter kits” online, they were all pretty pricey (ranging $40-150)…for a tea base, a kombucha base and a scoby (or Mother) mushroom. My partner suggested I look on kijiji. Lucky for me, I found someone local who was selling the kombucha base, including the scoby, for a few bucks and she emailed the recipe too. All I had to do was make the tea, cool it and follow the recipe.
Learning the process of fermentation of tea is like doing a fun experiment at home! I also get to taste it at different stages and have great tasting kombucha (just the way I like it) for a few dollars and a little patience.
The 5 Benefits of Making Your Own Kombucha
1-It’s so much cheaper
I don’t know about you, but when I love to eat or drink something, I don’t like to break the bank to enjoy it. Often, that means learning to make it yourself or buying in bulk.
Two jugs of roughly 4 L cost me the initial $10 bases and 50 g of organic sencha green tea (roughly $12). That’s a lot of kombucha bottles! Let’s say it works out to about 10 bottles for my first batch and I recycled bottles I’d bought at $4-6 each, I managed to yield 10 bottles from my 2 jugs and that means they cost me approximately $2 each.
The big kombucha adventure begins
2-You can make it how you like it (and reduce the sugar!)
I have a fondness for ginger-flavoured drinks. I especially like ginger kombucha. I also know that you can make pretty tasty fruit-flavoured kombucha. A lot of commercial kombucha is sickeningly sweet; you can choose to add less sugar. You can experiment at low cost (and great excitement!) with what flavours you like and maybe even create a kind not yet sold. That’s the beauty of being creative!
3-It teaches you patience
Kombucha takes several days, even weeks, to properly ferment and acquire the right zing and effervescence. Many blogs says it takes between 7-30 days, depending on your taste preference. In short, the least it ferments, the sweeter it is, the more it ferments, the more tart it becomes. The culture feeds on the sugar you mix in at the beginning. So the longer it feeds, the less sugar there is left for you to taste.
4-There is less waste and more connection to food
When you purchase packaged food, whatever it is, there is waste, even when we recycle. It’s often a good idea to make what you can at home as your bit for the environment (don’t obsess about it, but know that what you do do, is a great step!).
The process of making food increases our connection to it. I read that when we prepare our own food, we have an easier time digesting it. That makes a lot of sense to me! As a reiki master, I also know that we impart our intentions to the food we prepare.
5-It can be an active meditation
The act of preparing kombucha is not complex, but it involves certain steps in a certain order. Preparing kombucha mindfully, and “infusing” it with loving intentions can give a sense of presence, empowerment and it can yield wonderfully tasting tea. It’s an easy and practical meditation.
My jars of kombucha!
What’s your favourite flavour of kombucha? Tell me about something you learned to make that taught you more about yourself in the process?
