Continuous Brew Kombucha Tea

Kombucha tea is a fermented tea that is high in good bacteria and yeast. Great for your health. I drink a cup or two every day. It tastes a little like tangy apple cider. With the continuous brew, you will always have tea ready to go. You will need a gallon or larger glass beverage container with a spigot. Make sure the spigot is plastic and not metal. You don't want metal to touch the scoby (which is the culture needed to ferment your tea). Metal will kill the scoby, along with any heat. The scoby looks a little like a huge mushroom top, but pale and somewhat see-through. The rest of the instructions will be included in the body of the recipe. Cook time is fermenting time. The database wouldn't accept 'scoby', but this is critical to the drink. If you need one, contact me and I can direct you.

• Ready In: 169 hrs
• Yields: 1 gallon

Ingredients

• 4  quarts  filtered water (or spring water)
• 3  tablespoons  loose black tea (or 2 T black tea and 1 T green, do not use more green tea than that)
• 1  cup  organic white sugar, preferably

Directions

1. Bring one quart of water to boil, turn heat off, then add the tea (in a bag or use tea bags, 6-8). Cover and let steep for 10 minutes, more if you like stronger tea.
2. Add 1 cup sugar and stir until dissolved; let water cool for a few minutes.
3. In a large glass beverage container, with a plastic spigot, put the 1 quart of tea, along with 3 more quarts of cool water and stir.
4. Add 1-2 cups of starter tea. This is tea that has been fermented from a previous batch. You should have gotten this with the scoby (from a friend). Put scoby on top of tea.
5. Cover with a small tea towel and rubber band (to keep secure and keep out bugs - they love this stuff). Let sit on the counter for 7-10 days, tasting after 7 days to see if you like it. You can then pour some out to drink, or you can bottle some of it and flavor it to second ferment. You can flavor it with just about any fruit or veggie etc. Put a bit of the fruit or pureed fruit (about 1/4 C) in a soda bottle and add kombucha. Do not fill to the top or it may fizz out of the bottle. Cap and let sit on counter for another day or so, burping as necessary to avoid explosions. Place in fridge after the 2nd ferment. It will continue to ferment in the fridge, but much more slowly.
6. When your supply is down to 2 quarts, make another batch but be sure to remove scoby from the glass container when adding the new, cooled tea. You won't need more starter tea, as that is what is in your container already! Add scoby back in and cover.
7. Notes: If you see some dark strings in the tea, that is the yeast. It is perfectly fine. For lots of help and questions, Facebook has several groups dedicated to fermenting and also to kombucha. Most of the groups are very helpful and friendly. You may also contact me and I will try to help, if I can. Each time the scoby is moved, jostled, etc, it will grow a 'baby'. You may leave it attached to the 'mother' or eventually pull them apart if the tea gets too vinegary too quickly. Save the baby (or mother) in a separate glass jar with kombucha tea to cover. It doesn't matter if your scoby is small for your jar. The baby scoby will grow to fit the container.