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Why did we start making kombucha?
My son suffers from asthma and a slew of allergies, which have resulted in rashes, puffiness, eczema outbreaks, labored breathing, and endless visits with medical professionals. Hours of research and doctors’ visits led us regularly back to the idea that the root of the problem is gut health. Since I happen to be close friends with a generous, helpful kombucha-maker (Shout out, Megan!), the jump to making my own kombucha was inevitable.
What the heck is kombucha, and what does it have to do with gut health?
Kombucha is a fermented sweet tea. I use eight bags of black tea (I like Earl Grey.) and one cup of sugar in each gallon I make. But that’s not all! To ferment your tea you’ll need to add a disc of otherworldly slime called a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast). If you have a friend who makes kombucha, ask her if she’ll help you get started by giving you a layer of her SCOBY. Otherwise, you can buy a SCOBY online or even make one yourself.
The digestive benefits of kombucha reside within the SCOBY, which adds probiotics to the sweet tea. Drinking your probiotics is an effective way to support a healthy gut.
How did we fail better?
From my experience, kombucha brewing is pretty easy to get right. However, I’ve managed to screw it up. Before I made kombucha-brewing a recurring item on my weekly to-do list, I unintentionally allowed the fermentation process to go on for too long, which produced a really vinegary drink that nobody in our household would drink. This wasn’t a huge deal, though. We saved the SCOBY and a cup of the vinegary kombucha and threw them both into a freshly brewed batch of sweet tea. Problem solved.
Also, when I first started making kombucha, I skipped one step of the process entirely. I didn’t realize I was supposed to ferment our kombucha for a second round. Honestly, we all really liked the taste of the single fermentation, and single-fermented kombucha also offers immunity-boosting gut benefits, so it wasn’t really a fail. The second fermentation helps the kombucha to have a delightful fizz to it. I’m still working to perfect the fizz. Sometimes I nail it; sometimes it’s a flop.
Is my son magically healed?
Of course not. He still has eczema flare-ups and other issues because he still has asthma and allergies. However, we’ve noticed fewer reactions since we started being more intentional about building gut health. Like all good motivational speakers these days, we’re seeking progress, not perfection.