Kombucha Tea

I finished making my third batch of kombucha tea this morning. Kombucha is a fermented tea made from a mushroom.  It sounds weird, and believe me it took a while for Mr. DALT to taste it. Because my grungy hippy friend used to make it, the tea used to have a strange allure for me. She had it hidden in the cupboard in a big pickle jar with hanging dried herbs. Occasionally she would pull a jar out from her enormous carpetbag purse and sip on it quietly like a bum with a bottle of beer in a paper bag. Now it is so mainstream, you can buy it from Walmart in the vegetable aisle.

You don’t have to have some magical hippy power to make your own. It is easy to brew and the ingredients you use make it uniquely your own.

A friend and I started at the same time, buying our mushroom (called a scoby) from the same little Etsy shop. But due to our differing home environments, our teas taste different.  I like the taste of a green tea versus a black. Now that I have a gallon, I will add ginger to a small jar and let it sit in the refrigerator for a few days. My peppermint plant that survived the winter will supply some fresh leaves for a separate batch.

I like to put my tea in pretty blue mason jars. Ball usually has a new heritage jar each season, this year is purple. Purple isn’t my favorite for a food container, so here is a link to the pretty blue ones.

I’ve  been sipping on my brew as I wrote this post, now I am full of energy to start my heirloom black cherry tomato seeds!