- I'm just gonna go for it.
(splashing)
(chuckling)
- What the...
What the hell is that?
Ew!
(upbeat music)
- Hello everybody, I'm Merle.
And today I'm gonna be talking to you about the world
of Kombucha.
Kombucha is a fermented tea that's made of bacteria,
yeast, tea, and sugar.
So nobody really knows where kombucha is from
but it dates back thousands of years.
And now it's popular pretty much all over the world.
There's not actually enough scientific evidence to back up
that kombucha has all of these incredible health benefits.
But we do know that it contains a lot of probiotics
and that is very good for gut health.
You need fourteen cups of water, a container,
a cheese cloth or tea towel, a rubber band, one cup
of sugar, eight tea bags.
You can use green or white or black tea.
And a funnel comes in super handy.
And final you need the SCOBY.
SCOBY stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.
You can get your own SCOBY online.
You can ask a friend who has a SCOBY to split theirs
in half, or you can make your own.
It's very important when you're brewing your own kombucha
that you keep it real clean people.
But you don't wanna clean with soap
because you could kill your cute little SCOBY.
You're gonna wanna clean with white vinegar.
I can't wait.
I'm more than mortified to even imagine killing this thing.
I have poured vinegar over everything, all over my body.
Let's make this freakin' kombucha already.
Woo hoo!
The first step is gonna be to bring half of our water
to a boil.
So I'm gonna pour seven cups in here.
We just have to wait.
So the water's come to a boil.
And now I'm just going to add my sugar.
Take this adorable spoon and let that dissolve completely.
What is that?
Ow!
Now the sugar is fully dissolved
and I'm just gonna add my tea in here.
Give it a little stir.
Don't want that.
And we're gonna let that steep for ten minutes.
So basically, what you have here is a sweetened tea.
Duh, I mean, it's sugar and tea.
All right, so, now this has been sitting
for about ten minutes, I'm going to remove our tea bags.
Okay.
Make sure that you wash all of your utensils,
all of your containers, the funnel with vinegar.
(cheerful music)
(splashing)
(beep)
I don't think we need the funnel.
I'm just gonna go for the gold
and pour it right into this.
Don't expect it to be neat!
Well, that was less than graceful, but it doesn't matter.
This is the rest of the water I have.
It's about seven cups.
And it's pretty cold to bring the sweet tea down
to room temperature so then we can add our SCOBY.
I'm gonna set this aside to let this cool down
and just find ways to entertain myself in the meantime.
(cheerful music)
(humming)
Wanna do something cool?
You know what, just take a risk.
Oh boy!
(crashing)
(beep)
Room temperature sweet tea.
All right, I'm sterilized.
Time to open our cute little SCOBY.
What will we name her?
Scoby Doo, Scoby Bryant, Scoby Dick,
which sounds like an STD.
So we do actually want this liquid
that the SCOBY comes with.
This is basically more kombucha.
And that's just gonna help kickstart the whole process.
So, we're gonna pour that in.
And now I wanna hold the SCOBY.
Oh God.
Oh my God, there's two of them!
I don't know what's going on here.
Oh God, they're so weird!
They're like hard and soft at the same time.
I have to say I kind of love them.
They're forming to my hands.
And they do this, which is kind of cool.
So I guess now we'll have two in here.
Which I looked up and is not a bad thing.
And don't be alarmed if they don't float.
These two superstars are just floating right away.
But if they sink or they're sideways, that's totally cool.
They're just chillin'.
And now, it's time to cover this up.
You want air to be able to get in but we don't want bugs
or dust or anything gross to get in there.
Voila!
Now we're gonna wait seven to ten days,
then it'll be time to bottle!
It's been around ten days.
I checked back in at around the seven day mark
and was taste testing the kombucha until it got
to the flavor that I want.
So now it's time to bottle.
To keep your SCOBYs happy and healthy, you want to put them
in a cup or two of your last batch of kombucha.
Or you can just add a cup of store bought kombucha
with a little bit of sweet tea.
Just to hold them over until the next time you're ready
to use them.
The first thing that we're gonna do
is remove our beautiful little SCOBYs.
There we go.
And some people will just keep a bunch of SCOBYs together.
So they'll have dozens at a time in here just ready
to use whenever you want.
This is the part in the process where you can also choose
to flavor your kombucha if you want to.
Once you have your fruit in your bottle
and you add your kombucha mixture, you're going
to let it sit in the bottle for one to three days
to let the flavor infuse.
And then you wanna refrigerate it.
Because you don't want it to ferment any further than that.
And then, in a few days, we can try it.
Okay, the wait is finally over.
And now I'm gonna try the kombucha and I'm gonna bring
in a few friends and have them all taste test it too.
So you guys can see just how delicious homemade kombucha
can be.
- Wow!
- That's nice, you made this?
- [Merle] Yeah.
- Oh!
- That's really good.
- Delicious.
- Yeah?
- Kombucha, through and through.
- It tastes like if you took apple cider
and you put some vinegar in it.
- So apple cider vinegar?
- This tastes like apple cider vinegar
and sparkling water had a baby.
- I don't know if you guys saw, but I gave it a...
I wasn't too happy with what I got from that.
(laughing)
But none of that funkiness actually came through
in the taste.
- [Merle] Good.
- It was pretty light.
I like the bubbles.
- I like that it's not too sweet.
- If it doesn't taste like juice, it's healthy.
- This is definitely your true blue original.
- Scooby?
- A SCOBY.
- The SCOBA.
Is it SCOBA, SCUBA?
- Will I want to continue drinking this
after I see I - Maybe finish it first.
- What the...
What the hell is that, ew!
- Ew!
- [Merle] I know.
- Looks gross.
- It's really cool.
It's really cute!
- What is that?
- SCOBY. - Is that a mushroom?
- No.
(laughs)
- I've made this in my fridge by accident.
- If you say it's healthy, I trust you.
'Cause you're Merle and you know your stuff, so...
- Okay, so it seems like the reviews are in.
People liked it.
And honestly it was not that hard to do.
So, if you're even a little least bit curious,
I recommend giving it a shot.
And just remember sanitize everything and have fun.
And name your SCOBY, the thing worked hard for you.
It deserves a name.
Cheers.
(cheerful music)