However, to understand we must first understand the kombucha culture. In future articles we will discuss detailed steps to brew the tea using cultures right at home for literally pennies per serving. This is very desirable considering that a bottle of kombucha tea can cost as much at 5 bucks!



Basically you need four ingredients to make at home, Water, Tea, Sugar, and a Kombucha Culture. Though all four ingredients are just as important (and we will dedicate a complete article on each one), we figured that the culture is the most unfamiliar ingredient out of the group so we will begin with it first.

The kombucha culture has had many names throughout history. Some common terms are Kombuka, Kombucha Mushroom, Manchurian Mushroom, and Fester's Storm. Kombucha cultures are sometimes referred to as a mushroom because it resembles the cap of a big portabello mushroom. However, the culture is not related at all to the mushroom family.

Can You Say SCOBY?

The easiest way to refer to a Kombucha culture is by the acronym SCOBY, which stands for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast. The SCOBY resemble a leather like pancake the has literally billions of bacteria and yeasts to form its sold, jelly like composition.

>>HOW DID THIS WONDERFUL UGLY LOOKING THING COME TO BE?<<

Story Time - An old country doctor from the Alexandrov district near Moscow, noticed his peasant patients had no cancer. The doctor, wondering about this, started looking around... and discovered this: That to save money on tea the muzhiks of that locality brewed not tea, but chaga, otherwise known as the birch-tree mushroom. ... Actually, it's not even a birch-tree mushroom, but a birch-tree cancer ... a sort of ugly growth on old birch trees... It is dome-shaped, black on the outside and dark brown inside." It

occurred to doctor Maslennikov, Solzhenitsyn continues, that this tea made from the birch tree mushroom could be the magic remedy the Russian peasants, without realizing it, had been using to cure themselves of cancer for hundreds of years.

"So it started in Russia, great let's move on"... well not so fast!

Often it is said, that the Kombucha fungus had already been used 2000 years ago in China. It is also said to have existed for a long time now in Japan and Korea. Particularly in China it was the

Grandmother who kept a jar of it on hand at all times and was responsible for the preparation of the tea. When a daughter in the family got married and moved out to live with her husband (remember there were nucleus families back then where everyone lived together till they got married, and even then they might have continued to live together... side note: don't tell my mom about that or she'll expect the same of me!)- The Kombucha culture was passed down to the grand daughter to provide health and longevity to her family. Sort of like a family heir loom. Ha can you imagine getting that instead of a diamond ring :)