Made kombucha for the first time. I long have been a fan of fermentation (beer and wine), but this was kind of an odd choice since no one in the immediate family drinks kombucha. That didn't stop me - ha ha ha! Part of the appeal was the similarity to beer brewing that I engage in regularly: a primary fermentation in a vat then a secondary one in the individual bottles for natural carbonation. Adding flavors of your choosing for the secondary fermentation also sounded fun. I bottled one plain, one with honey, two with orange juice, and two with mango/pineapple.
This afternoon we had our first degustation and the summation from the fam was "I wouldn't choose to drink it but I wouldn't reject it outright either". Okay, fair. I was pleasantly surprised that the plain one wasn't as sour as I thought it would be. (for the record: 2 weeks primary fermentation in the gallon jar pictured below plus 3 days secondary fermentation in bottles (very mild carbonation but I was a bit nervous to let it go longer without checking on it))
Note that I kept the SCOBY so I can make it again in the future! (Part of the appeal for me in getting the starter kit) Look out fam, strange and unusual flavors coming up later this summer!
A bit of history: apparently the idea of drinking fermented black tea and flavoring it goes back centuries in China but the word "kombucha" comes from a poorly transcribed word from Japanese that refers to seaweed tea (an entirely different beast).
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