Have you ever seen one of these bottles selling in Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s? Do you ever wonder what it is and why the heck each bottle cost $4? A few months ago, I decided to find out what it is myself and forked out $4 for a raspberry flavored one. Once I opened the cap, the liquid started fizzing and foaming (naturally carbonated). I took a sip and it tasted nothing like what I was expecting. The drink was quite sour and had an odd after taste to it. I didn’t like it at all, but I figured that I should finish it and make it worth $4. About fifteen minutes later, I was in for a surprise.
I suddenly had a burst of energy, even more than the burst I get from Red Bull. At the same time, I became a tiny bit tipsy and started to sweat. The tipsy feeling wore off in about 10 minutes but the energy burst kept me going for a good few hours. After that incident, I was determined to find out WTF this drink is and what is it supposed to do to you. Visiting the trusty Wikipedia entry on Kombucha helped me find out that this drink promises vitality restoration and DOES NOT guarantee to cure anything. The odd thing was that even though the drink made no promises, many Kombucha Tea drinkers report illnesses vanishing. Some stories I’ve heard are: fat people becoming skinny, skinny people becoming healthy, cancers stopped growing, people sleeping better, people waking up more refreshed. I also have my own stories too, but I will go into that later. This all sounded interesting but $4 per bottle is too expensive to make this a daily drink.
I then found out that I could actually brew fresher Kombucha Tea myself at home at minimal cost (pennies to a gallon). I bought a starter mushroom (that will last forever) for $30 and then followed the tutorial from Wikihow. Within a week, my first batch finished and I had my own Kombucha Tea!
My parents and I have been drinking Kombucha Tea daily for the past 2 months. After drinking it a few times, it starts to taste good :). Here is a list of our success stories to date:
- Dad: My dad has a kidney problem so he usually gets out of bed 6-8 times per night to urinate. After drinking this tea for a month, he’s down to urinating once a night and sometimes none at all!
- Mom: One day my mom was extremely exhausted and was too tired to cook dinner for the family. She drank a glass and became fully energetic and fully restored within 30 minutes. Also my mom is going through menopause and one of the side affects is frequent midnight insomnia. Her daily drinking has also kept her sound asleep for many nights now. Lastly, ever since she started drinking Kombucha Tea my mom has gone through her periods without any backaches.
- Me: A month ago I had a sore throat. I drank a cup of a Kombucha Tea and 4 hours later, my sore throat was gone. Maybe it’s a bad correlation but what else could it be? I also feel that my junk food cravings are lessening and my fresh food cravings are increasing. Right now if I had to choose between a Twix bar and an apple, I would choose the apple. Other than that I don’t notice anything different except for the energy burst (maybe it’s because I’m still young and I don’t have an illness yet).
I’m curious what this drink will do to you too. If you decide to ever try this drink please let me know what happens! Leave a comment!
hell yeah! i oughta start brewin…
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My mom said she had some rashes on her arms, she thinks she is allergic to kombucha lol.
I think its just her thinking too much.
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That’s not good, she should stop drinking.
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She might be allergic to all the caffeine she puts in it! I put just 3 tablespoons of green tea leaves for a gallon and a half brew.
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You need to look into it more.. You’re only supposed to start drinking 2oz/day for a little while (week) than go to 8oz/day or maybe 16oz/day.. recommended to split the daily dosage in two also. It is a very strong detoixifier so it’ll be hard on you liver if you start taking bigger dosages than you should. You can get rashes from doing this and DEF smelly poops - I bet you’re mom did. You are NOT supposed to take it all the time (everyday for awhile) since it’s a probiotic and can fuck w/antibiotcs. I’ve read of someone taking it constantly for awhile than having problems such as a rash..so he stopped taking it and resumed a few months later. Basicly some people cycle this. There are also articles on not taking it all. If you make it only use glass since it actually sucks some metal off of metal pots…this is how a person or two died actually. I jerked off off to kombucha as I first learned about it just as you are - until I did some research. Don’t treat it like juicy juice- kombucha is not well understood and is a risk to take though low.
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Actually, now that you’ve mentioned our family did start off gradually drinking bit-by-bit and increased the dosage after a week or so. We started with 4oz/day then increased to 8oz/day (and we are still sticking at 8oz per day). Thank you for the information, anonymous fella!
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Whoa I didn’t know that..
Thanks for the info annon.
I ‘ll look in it deeper.
btw, I ‘ll ask my mom whether she noticed smelly poops lol.
But i think you r right. my batch was more concentrated than Thaya’s too.
So I guess I have to cut down the tea and the sugar.
Thanks again.
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There’s a guide here on how to make it:
http://www.happyherbalist.com/kombucha_brewing_guide.htm
It looks like the ratio of sugar to water is: 1 cup for every 3 quart (not including the starter tea).
It also says 5-6 tea bags for every 3 quart.
I have a 6 quart (1.5 gallon) setup at home (1 quart of it is starter tea), so I’m using: (6-1) * 1/3 = 1 and 2/3 cups of sugar.
I usually throw in 3 table spoons full of green tea (I think that’s about right?).
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heh smelly poops/sweat are normal when taking it - it’s just your body detoxifying. I had them too
also search for kombucha on youtube - a few vids, and some books at amazon.com
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My poop is always smelly, with or without the booch
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I wanna try! Damnit, why am I reading about this? Should’ve been txt to try this new drink.
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