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Kombucha!!
Please note: Although I no longer sell Kombucha cultures, I am
still posting these instructions and a couple of links to
sources. I urge everyone to join the fight against
Codex Alimentarius, which would
reclassify all your food supplements as "drugs", including, I
assume, Iodoral. Then you would have to get a prescription from
a doctor and pay an inflated price for a very controlled dosage,
which will mostly be too low to do you any real good. Thanks for
helping.
According to Guenther Frank's book on Kombucha, it is a
symbiotic combination of a bacterium and a yeast (SCOBY).
Symbiotic means that each one gains something from the
association. From this culture we make a terrific drink, simple
to make, and loaded with enzymes, which we all need for good
health.
Note added 10-30-05 My astute customer JoAnne, referred to
further on, noted to me in a letter that she's a firm believer
in hyaluronic acid, both ingesting it and applying it to the
skin, adding that it's found in Kombucha! As a former
aesthetician I knew a little about HA, that it helps connective
tissues and especially the collagen in the skin to stay moist
and youthful. But I had not known it was found in Kombucha! (Nor
that it seems to assist things like the Mitral Valve of the
heart. More information on
what HA does.)
Here is a very interesting article on Kombucha, mentioning
the glucuronic acid (a component of hyaluronic acid) content.
This article is posted on the Kombucha Center website, which kindly listed me as a source for cultures for several years.
There are many versions of the instructions. Here's mine:
Start with everything very clean!! Please don't use any aluminum
pots or utensils for Kombucha. I use a big stainless steel
spaghetti pot and make 2 gallons of tea at a time with a large
1-ounce restaurant sized tea bag PER GALLON and 3 cups of sugar
per pot which is enough for 3 gallon jars of "K-T". Note: lately
I've noticed the sugar seems to be less sweet. How can this be?
Anyway, I'm using a little more, and it seems to do better. You
can experiment.
I use gallon sized glass jars. Get the ones with the wider
mouth, like the mayonnaise jars, if you can. Pickle jars usually
have the narrower mouth. I hear you can use the plastic ones,
but I don't because I don't know what the plastic can absorb (or
give off). You can also get creative and use one of those
flat-sided fish bowls, or a sun-tea jar. Don't use a juice jug
because you won't be able to get the culture in and out of it.
For one jar, start with 2 to 2 1/2 quarts of water, bring it to
a boil and boil for 5 minutes. Turn off the burner and throw in
some tea or teabags. Use about 6 regular teabags or a scant 1/4
cup of loose tea. You can combine green and black tea or use one
or the other, though the culture seems to prefer to have at
least some black tea. Herb teas don't work because they have no
tannin, which the culture needs . Use good water for K-T.
You don't want to fill the jar all the way up because the tea
needs air on the surface to work right. Two to two-and-a-half
quarts of water in a gallon jar, plus your culture and starter
tea, is an acceptable surface area and you should have good
success.
For just one jar, after letting the tea steep for a while (I
make mine very strong), add from 3/4 to 1 cup of white sugar.
Remember this is for the Kombucha, not for you. The culture
needs this food source, and honey contains enzymes and complex
sugars and sometimes bacterial contaminants that will tend to
degrade the culture over time. The culture will use the sugar to
make a new baby on top of the tea as well as creating numerous
enzymes and other factors that are purported to have many health
benefits.
After stirring the sugar into the tea until it is completely
dissolved, pour the tea into your clean jar. Let it cool until
it is lukewarm, about the temperature you'd put a baby in. Then
put your starter culture in along with the starter liquid. Take
ONE taste with a clean spoon. DON'T dip the tasting spoon back
in the jar without washing it first!!! If it doesn't taste a
teeny bit tart, add 1/4 cup of white vinegar. This will help
prevent mold and give your culture a jump start.
Put a new coffee filter over the jar and secure it with a rubber
band. I don't recommend cheese cloth because fruit flies, which
love K-T, can get through the mesh. Towels may be too dense and
not allow the culture to breathe as it needs to. Place your jar
in a quiet spot where it will have some ventilation (not in a
stuffy closet, please) and be undisturbed. Undisturbed means,
don't move the jar AT ALL. The baby forms on TOP of the tea.
Your starter culture may sink or float, and it doesn't matter
which it does. The temperature is important. Kombucha prefers a
temperature of 68-83 degrees Fahrenheit. In cold weather it will
grow a little slower, even in a warm house.
Your Kombucha tea is ready to drink when the baby is 1/4" - 3/8"
thick, which will take 10-14 days, depending on temperature and
other factors. You can experiment to see at what stage you like
it best, but just remember, there will be more enzymes in it if
you let it go a little longer. Remove the baby and the original
culture to a clean bowl and pour your starter liquid first from
the jar for the next batch. I suggest this so you don't forget
and drink it all! But even if you do forget, you can still start
more tea. Just add 1/2 cup of white vinegar instead of the
starter. That batch may take a little longer.
Once I had some extra babies and no jars, and I put them all in
an enormous plastic bowl with a solution of 1/2 water and 1/2
white vinegar, to keep them clean, wet, and free of mold while I
got more jars. I then covered it with a large white dish towel
and promptly forgot about it for approximately 10 days. When I
suddenly realized this and looked fearfully into the bowl,
thinking they were all going to be dead, what had the shameless
fungus done but make a huge creamy white baby on top of the
vinegar water! No tea, no sugar! I was amazed, and it shows how
hardy the stuff is. (And yes, I know it isn't really a fungus.)
Your K-T should be a little tart, slightly sweet, and although
different batches are each a little different, it will probably
be slightly effervescent and bubbly. New K-T does have a tiny
bit of alcohol, but then so does commercial orange juice........
Enjoy your K-T! If you have just one jar and don't want to throw
out one culture, just put them both in the jar, no problem. Or
give one to a friend with some starter tea.
OK, now that you know how to make Kombucha, where to get a
culture? There are many sources with different offers available.
After 5 years and 500 customers, I no longer sell Kombucha
cultures because I am doing some traveling with
Hubby, and my helpers said "ewww" when I asked if they'd be
willing to keep the little darlings going in my absence.
The Kombucha Center has an excellent
list of sources to explore (at
http://users.bestweb.net/~om/~kombu/starts.html in case the link
doesn't work for some reason).
My friend and colleague, Ardi, also on the above list under A.F.
Kombucha, has a
site you might like to visit. He is a person of high
integrity and you can buy from him with confidence. (address
http://www.kombucha2000.com/ if the link doesn't work)
For more information, just put the word Kombucha into your
internet search engine and follow your nose!
I received this
testimonial from a customer, Brenda, regarding her husband's
experience with Hepatitis C and Kombucha. I have her permission
to post it here.
Here is
another letter from another customer, Mary, regarding her
experience with Post-Polio issues and Kombucha. It is posted
here with her permission.
I'm certain that the live enzymes in Kombucha are a primary
reason for the dramatic results to a sick liver in the first
testimonial linked above. Now I've been led to a systemic enzyme
product that helps to clear the body of stiffness, pain,
viruses, and parasites in a very gentle and non-toxic way. I'm
very impressed this supplement. Click
here to check out
Vitalzym.
To ask questions,
email me! (RemoteVwr@aol.com)
Rabbit Trails.....
Iodoral ~ fabulous iodine supplement!!....
My views on health freedom....
Questions to ask your doctor....
Start at the beginning!!....
9/19/03 UPDATE!! PS, I found a fantastic tea merchant called
Upton Tea Imports!! Go visit their site and check them out.
The teas SEEM expensive, compared to Lipton, BUT a friend gave
me a 1/4 kilo of an ASSAM district tea, and OMY what a
difference. I'm going to try it for my personal KT.
12/1/04 I still like the convenience of the Lipton 1-oz bags,
but I've experimented with several Upton teas with success. I
make my own 4" wide tea bags out of non-woven interfacing that I
get at JoAnn Fabrics. Be sure to make the bag big enough to
allow the tea leaves to fully unfurl in the hot water. With
Upton it does seem to be necessary to have the water at a full
rolling boil for 5 minutes, throw in the tea bag, clap the lid
on the pot, and THEN turn off the heat. Be extra careful to
handle the bag with spoon only and not with hands. I think this
is because Upton doesn't sterilize the life out of their teas.
Pure speculation, that. My very favorite Upton Teas are the ones
from India.
10-27-05 update: My very astute customer JoAnne, making Kombucha
with a culture she ordered from me in January, wrote to order
another culture because hers had failed. She routinely puts the
new baby into a locking plastic bag while she makes a new batch
of tea for the next batch. She couldn't figure out what happened
until she noticed the new plastic bags had some sort of
anti-bacterial stuff on them. "...it was actually Glad Zipper
bags that I bought the case of at the price club - with 'Fresh
Protect' - it says that it is designed to maintain a balanced
level of carbon dioxide and oxygen for keep food fresher longer,
but I can trace KTs nose-dive to when I bought them."
So, a word to the wise. Glad bags would probably be great to
help keep food fresh, but apparently Kombucha doesn't like them!
Thanks very much, JoAnne, for permission to post this item.
Disclaimer: Please note that your use of these instructions and
Kombucha tea are solely at your own risk and discretion and
Nancy Adams assumes no responsibility for your results, either
positive or negative, or lack thereof. Kombucha tea is used by
many people worldwide (including me) as a health drink. No
claims of any sort are made for the use of this tea, at least by
me. People who've gotten well drinking it feel differently about
that.
Last updated 6-15-06.
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