Last year I visited the Homegrown Institute to talk about aquaponics. While there, I heard about an allegedly fabulous drink, kombucha.

The standard kombucha recipe calls for sweetened black tea, which is then let to ferment for a week or so with the aid of a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast (a SCOBY). The final result is a lightly carbonated pro-biotic drink rich in B-vitamins.

My initial impression was this drink was not kosher for me, being a Mormon who doesn’t drink tea or alcohol. But after a bit of research, I found kombucha can be made using the non-caffeinated leaves of rooibos and honeybush plants. Even though it is fermented, the resulting beverage is allegedly considered non-alcoholic at less than 0.5% alcohol content.

Curious, I decided to give it a try. I purchased a kombucha SCOBY and began the experiment with some rooibos tea. I also purchased a hydrometer to verify the reputed low alcohol content. After my first batch, I was able to verify that the alcohol content is less than 1 proof, around 0.5%. That makes it less alcoholic than non-alcoholic eggnog made with real vanilla extract. Plus, it’s recommended that one dilute the kombucha with two parts water, making the final beverage about as alcoholic as warm orange juice.

Why bother with home-made kombucha?

• Home-made kombucha is pretty inexpensive. After the initial purchase of the starter SCOBY and appropriate bottles, the cost is just sugar, the dried rooibos leaves and (tap) water. The benefits of kombucha would be similar to the sweet vinegar health drinks sold at asian markets, which clock in at $8 per bottle.
• Store-bought kombucha is expensive and made with camellia sinensis, traditional tea of the sort I don’t drink.
• It’s a low-calorie alternative to sodas and fruit juice, and it doesn’t cause the health problems that some experience when drinking milk. Not that there’s anything wrong with drinking water, but it is nice having an alternative.

Low-calorie flavored drinks have been associated with weight gain, apparently causing the brain to crave the calories associated with sweet taste. It isn’t clear whether kombucha also triggers more weight gain than just drinking water.

The last concern would be some kind of toxic fungus starting to grow in the kombucha, like aspergillus, the green mold you sometimes see growing on old bread. But the green mold of aspergillus is distinctive, and I’ve not yet found any on my kombucha SCOBYs. And I haven’t managed to die despite several decades of unintentional exposure to moldy bread.

This might be one of my fads that passes, like making my own yogurt, sprouting, or curdling my own tofu. But so far it seems easy and enjoyable, both to drink and make.

For more information, the New York Times wrote a nice comprehensive article on kombucha in 2010. If you’re interested in making your own kombucha, I liked the free course available at the Get Kombucha website.