Healthy bubbles!

Happy Friday! The young crazy fridays used to start with a sparkling bubble glass to celebrate a week and start of the weekend, usually followed by a resto or pub crawl. And later followed by not so sparkly efortless day in bed 🙂

I still very much enjoy a qualitative glass of crément or procecco (do you know they start making rosé one?!), however I think it is nice to have that glass for that special celebration and with some moderation.

More & more I love my weekends with good sleep, full days & fresh head, so actually I very much like a wonderful & healthy alternative to casual bubbles – Kombucha! It is definately getting hits lately in Lithuania as well. And it is even more fun when you can make it yourself!

All you need is a so called Scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast or otherwise called “tea mushroom”) which is the mother of Kombucha, then your favourite tea & qualitative sugar and…imagination!!

The process is rather simple: you boil 2-3 l of tea, melt the sugar and let it cool down overnight. And then… FERMENTATION process begins! You slide your Scoby together with around 200 ml of unfermented liquid in the tea in a glass jar, cover it with natural cloth & leave it in warm room temperature to sit & breathe!

After 5-7 days you can taste your original Kombucha! You can take out your Scoby, wash it delicately and together with ~ 200-500 ml of fermented Kombucha, you can set it aside in the fridge for future games.

The ‘magic’ is – during 1st fermentation process, your Scoby eats all the sugar & grows, so the longer the fermentation, the less sugar in your Kombucha!

If you would like to give your brew a fancy flavour, you can do some magic here and go for 2nd fermentation process which brings the bubbles in!!!

You can add & combine various ingredients to your original Kombucha to make it fancy & sweet (i.e. honey, ginger, oranges, lime, pineapple and many more) and keep it further in a sealed glass container for 2-4 days more!

First it might seem like some work to do, but it is definately worth it! First – it gives you authentic taste of bubbly drink, second – a lot of energy! More importantly it is super healthy, since it has natural ingredients, is rich in probiotics and contains antioxidants!

Perfect for just celebrating life!

PS. I brewed mine with quince tea from my farther’s hand-picked quinces. And I did not go for the 2nd fermentation this time, since I am still keeping-up my sugar off for a while 🙂

Cheers,

Agne