Still Here and Still Healthy

Ok - a full quart of the home-brewed kombucha is consumed and I am still kicking. Honestly, I feel pretty good and, whether psychosomatic or not, I kind of felt a spike in my energy level yesterday as well. That is truly saying something for me, especially on a Monday, because it is one of my longer days at school and well, it is Monday for crying out loud. I managed to not only blog, but also to finish about half of the week's worth of laundry, do a little school work and cook dinner for last night and for tonight as well. Really - that is a LOT more than I typically do on a Monday afternoon/evening. I am usually wiped out by my class and it is like pulling teeth just trying to get the bare minimum done for the day and to prepare for a very early morning on Tuesday.

I am still not digging on the lack of fizziness in my first batch here, but the flavor is definitely growing on me. It is nicely tart with just a little hint of sweetness and it really looks pretty in the glass. I get that sour, fermented smell off the liquid, but it is not as off-putting as some of the store-bought varieties that I have tried. (Please see the entry entitled, "Oh, the horror!" Geez - I just gagged a little reliving that experience.) Also, I am not sure if I did it right, but my kombucha is lacking the snotty strings of culture that typically float around in the store bought bottles. Maybe that is why it is not effervescent, but if so, I can live with that. Those cultures may be the key to bubbles and the most healthful benefit of kombucha, but I am not a fan of chewing my drinks, so, like I said, I can live with mine being less snotty than most.

Anyway, on with the experimentation (or the "snake-oil" as my mother is fond of saying these days). I have a little more time this morning to see if I can figure out how to carbonate my next batch because I have a new gallon of sweetened tea sitting on the stove, awaiting its "mothers". I think I am going to go tropical with this batch - maybe acai, tamarind or guanabana. We shall see what I feel like when I get to the store this afternoon or tomorrow. Here's to not poisoning myself and keep your fingers crossed for fizzy next week!! Til next time....

Addendum (posted 2 minutes later): I figured it out. I refrigerated my kombucha during the second fermentation process. I should have left it out on the counter because I think I made the culture go dormant by chilling it. Ok, well, it obviously didn't hurt ME and I know better for next time.

I Did It

That's right....I did it. I brewed my first batch of kombucha. I actually just finished drinking my first full glass of kombucha and, a full five minutes later, I am still sitting here at the desk, not retching my guts out. Again with the too much information, you say? Well, let's just say that the whole "accidentally poisoning myself" thing has been in the back of my mind the whole time this tasty little drink has been brewing. I am relatively pleased with the results of my first effort: the kombucha is an appealing maroon color and has a bright and tangy flavor which complements the blueberry and pomegranate flavors of the fruit juice used in the fermentation process. A couple of things that I am not so happy with: first, my kombucha is not effervescent and I am not exactly sure why. Second....well, mostly I am just peeved that the stuff didn't come out fizzy. Other than that, it tastes, smells, appears to be exactly like the stuff that I have bought at the grocery store. I guess I will have to research and try to figure out why the drink did not self-carbonate this time. "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," right? Hell, as long as I don't make myself sick from this stuff, I think I will count this little experiment as a success. I think I will hang on to this first batch and ingest it by myself to see how it affects me. I had promised a couple of friends that they could try it, providing I avoided any type of medical follow-up after drinking it, but despite my early digestive prowess, I want to make sure it is safe before I go around handing out liquids inadvertently laden with food-borne illnesses. Maybe the next batch will be bubbly. I sure hope so because that is kind of why I decided to initiate this little adventure in the first place.

Oh, the horror!!

Well, first of all, I am embarrassed yet again. Mainly because I have been slacking and have not posted anything new for quite a while now. Truly, this was not because I did not have anything to say - anyone who knows me even a little will tell you that is NEVER the case. Mostly, it was because I have been so stressed out by school and by life that I just have not had the opportunity to sleep well, let alone write on my pretty little blog. I am still stressed, and will continue to be for at least the next 12 hours (BIG day for me at school - once this one is over, I can kick back a little), but I tried something yesterday that required at least a short entry.

Remember a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about my little kombucha obsession? Well, it continues today and my little brewing experiment is progressing nicely on my countertop even as I type. It should actually be ready by next Monday, so expect a blurb about my first home-brewed batch of pomegranate-blueberry kombucha first thing Tuesday morning. (Again, that presupposes that I will not need to visit the nearby hospital for a stomach pumping Monday evening. Fingers crossed!) Anyway, back to today's topic - yesterday my daughter and I were grocery shopping and, like I have been doing for a couple of weeks now, I stopped by the refrigerated section of the health foods aisle at my store to pick up a new flavor of kombucha. (I have tried quite a few at this point and they have all been tasty in their own way.) Based on the fact that I am currently fighting off the remnants of a cold and, yesterday, a minor hangover to boot (I said I was stressed - no judgement, people!), I decided to try the "green" kombucha, which listed a number of plant based ingredients, the most intriguing of which was blue algae. I am not sure why I thought that this was a good idea, but the color looked so dang pretty in the store. It was this beautiful, clear, kelly-green that looked fresh and just seemed to smack of healthful benefits. I was kind of excited to try it since it was the first non-fruit based version that I have picked up.

So, I get home, unload the groceries and whip out the emerald kombucha. I started to shake it, gently, to distribute the culture and because there seemed to be some green sediment at the bottom of the bottle. I was kind of fascinated by how quickly the oz-like liquid morphed into dirty, sludgey swamp water because, apparently that is what the sediment was. Then, because I shook the bottle a little too much, it started hissing at me, so I unscrewed the cap and spewed fizzy, algae laced kombucha everywhere. Seriously, the foam that now covered the bottle, my hands and filled most of the glass that I managed to get out had these filthy, scummy little specks in it. I thought it couldn't possibly smell or taste as bad as it looked, so I sniffed it cautiously and was smacked in the face with a rather rancid, soured spinach (and I guess algae) odor. It was like a glass full of the Bog of Eternal Stench (little game for you - guess the movie!)....ok, maybe not that bad, but god, it smelled foul. You might think that I wouldn't drink something that I thought looked and smelled disgusting. Well....you would be wrong. I thought it couldn't POSSIBLY taste as bad as it looked and as bad as it smelled. So, I held my breath and chugged.

Moral of the story here is: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...it is a duck. The green kombucha was nasty. It completely changed color upon mixing (red flag one); it looked putrid after mixing (red flag two); it smelled terrible (red flag three); and finally, it tasted worse than the aloe vera juice that I tried a couple of years ago, which earned its own "tart ass" moniker (red flag four). Lesson learned. By the way, the reason I chugged it, if you haven't guessed it already, is because I am cheap. I spent $3.19 on that stuff and, by God, I was going to down it if it killed me. I also kept it down, although, for about 30 minutes after, I kind of felt like I was going to puke. Little too much information? Maybe, but that's what I am here for, folks. My pain is your gain and here is the message of the day: DON'T DRINK THE GREEN KOMBUCHA (unless you like that sort of thing - more for you, really). Stay tuned.

Kombucha

Well, that is embarrassing. First, I make this big announcement that I am revamping the content of my blog to be completely food related and then……nothing. Over two weeks worth of nothing to be exact. Not that I didn’t have other things to do because I certainly did. I had school work to do (which I can’t wait to be rid of), books to read, TV to watch, kids to take care of, etc. What? Don’t food writers have lives, too? Back to the point here. One of those things that I did over the past two weeks was to try the strange concoction of kombucha. This is a fermented tea, which is apparently an ancient Chinese drink and which claims to have a wide range of health benefits. My cousin, who is also a chef, mentioned it in several of her Facebook posts and so, thus inspired, I decided to try it.

I bought my first 16-ounce, certified organic bottle at one of my local “health-foods” grocery stores (of which there are now several in the Austin area – anyone noticed that trend?) on sale for $1.99. The label was colorful and really very pretty, but what intrigued me, beyond anything else, was the flavor: Elderberry Hibiscus. (You can say it with an English/Monty Python accent if you like. You know you want to.) As a southerner, and especially as a southerner with ties to Central Florida, I love hibiscus in all of its many forms, from floral to food. Many restaurants in our area serve an herbal hibiscus tea, which I often drink, and so, when I saw this option, I had to try it. Also, I enjoy saying Elderberry (see the Monty Python reference above), although I have not had particularly good experiences with that fruit (but that is a story for another time).
When I got home, I opened the bottle, not exactly sure what to expect. After reading the label and determining that a 16-ounce bottle actually contains four servings, I poured approximately eight ounces into a glass to check it out. (Yes, I know it was more than one serving, but it was only 40 calories and I was thirsty.) Since kombucha is a fermented drink, I should not have been surprised by the effervescence of the liquid, but I was not really paying attention to the fermented part, so I was slightly taken aback by the fizzy quality of that initial pour. I say “taken aback”, when I mean, “delighted”. I LOVE carbonated beverages. Anyway, I should also mention the smell. It is a little off-putting, to say the very least. It is a mixture of musty and slightly sour, with only the barest hint of the fruits, or in this case, flowers that flavor the drink. That being said, if you know ahead of time, I think you can get past it. The first sip was tart, tangy, bubbly, lightly sweet and oh, so refreshing. I literally guzzled the entire glass and had to stop myself from getting the remainder out of the refrigerator. (I stopped myself for about half an hour and then went back and finished the rest of the bottle. See, I have a little self control.)

So, I am hooked. I do not really know if all of the health claims about kombucha are true, but I also do not really care. I like the taste. I like the effervescence. I like the probiotics that are clearly visible as threads and a general cloudiness in the drink (another slightly off-putting factor, but I say, just man up and chug it). I like the energy I get from drinking it. I like the fact that it makes me feel full (another health claim – weight control and who doesn’t need help with that?). I also like that my cousin, wonderful woman that she is, sent me information on how to brew it myself. I currently have a starter sitting on my counter which should be ready in about a week to start its second fermentation as pomegranate-blueberry kombucha. I will end up with a couple of gallons, all for substantially less than the original $1.99 that I paid for that first bottle. (Since that one was on sale, the price was not too bad. The guava flavored one that I bought last week was a whopping $3.19!) I will let you know how it goes and if I survive my homemade kombucha. If I write my next blog from a hospital bed, at least you will know why.