kombucha!

I made an elasticized seersucker punch bowl cover specifically for our kombucha, to keep out dust and flies reliably - we started our first batch 2 weeks ago, so I took it down today to check it out and bottle it.

Ooo! What you see here is the new SCOBY with bubbly things on the surface of the kombucha, and the one we started with - kind of a ripped circle on the bottom half of the bowl - below that.

A close-up of the SCOBY!

Bottled.

New batch, decaf, half plain black tea, half chai, up top there - second from the right.

We like it! This batch was quite sweet, perhaps because the mother SCOBY we used was a bit worn-out? I figure we'll let this batch sit 3 weeks and see how it is. We had to add vinegar to our first batch to acidify the solution, to keep out undesirable pathogens - normally you just use a bit of mature kombucha, but we didn't have any - so I was afraid it would taste vinegary. Not at all! It was wonderfully tart and sweet and a bit fizzy. Hooray!

Sandor is the man when it comes to fermentation: