Ferment at home - recipe for your own tea fungus

Grow your own kombucha tea fungus with simple equipment

We'll explain how, with a little patience and the right ingredients, you can easily grow your own kombucha. To create your own symbiosis of yeast, bacteria, and enzymes, you need unpasteurized "raw" kombucha as your most important ingredient. Without the many living microorganisms, it will be difficult to grow your own kombucha. Your scoby also needs certain conditions: an environment that's not too bright or sunny, and a room temperature between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius. Factors such as humidity and air pressure also affect the development of the kombucha. We'll ignore these for now, under simple conditions at home. Let's get started! Let your scoby come to life!

You need:

• 1 large glass container with a wide mouth – rinsed thoroughly without detergent! (Vinegar is a handy cleaner)
• Tea – e.g. green tea, black tea (without flavorings / artificial additives)
• Organic raw cane sugar
• Water – ideally filtered
• unpasteurized kombucha (e.g. Kombucha Original )
• 1 breathable, clean drape

• Environment for the Scoby: 1 room with a temperature between 20 and 30 degrees

Ready to Scoby:

1. Boil tea with cane sugar for 8 to 10 minutes (8 g tea per liter / 60 g organic cane sugar per liter).
2. Pour the tea-sugar mixture into the glass container and let it cool, preferably overnight.
3. Important: Cover the glass with the breathable, clean cloth and secure it with a rubber band or ribbon!
4. The sugar should now be completely dissolved.
5. Now you can finally add the unpasteurized kombucha in a ratio of 1 to 10.
6. Then firmly reattach the cover to the jar and place the jar in a safe place.

Now it's time to wait, wait, wait!

Depending on the conditions, it can take 7 to 21 days for the kombucha fungus to form on its own. Initially, it looks like small foamy bubbles are forming on the surface of the liquid . These will gradually become denser over time until the scoby slowly becomes visible. I've also been able to bring a scoby to life on a small scale myself over the last few days.