Brewing a "well-cultured" tea

Reaching into a large glass jar filled with rust-colored liquid, Western alumna Becky Gehri pokes at a pancake-shaped live culture with a squid-like texture.

She smiles as the smell of vinegar fills the room.

“I named it Rasputin,” Gehri said.

Gehri brews her own fermented tea, commonly known as kombucha, in the comfort of her Bellingham home.

Kombucha is a mix of tea, live cultures and sugar that creates an acidic, vinegar-like taste.

The sugar mixes with the tea and the culture converts into organic acids that help detoxify the body, Gehri said.

After graduating from Huxley College with an environmental science degree, Gehri learned about fermenting her own food and began her kombucha experiment in her free time.

Name brand kombucha is sold on campus, as well as markets in downtown Bellingham, including the Community Food Co-op. One bottle can cost between $3 and $4. Gehri said brewing her own will save her money in the long run.

Western junior Anne Rarick was an avid store-bought kombucha drinker, until she realized her school expenses took priority over buying kombucha.

Drinking kombucha makes for a better-flowing digestive system and helps soothe stomach aches, Rarick said.

According to WebMD, there is no scientific evidence that kombucha is an effective treatment for any condition.

There have also been reports of adverse effects such as upset stomach, infections and allergic reactions in kombucha tea drinkers, according to the Mayo Clinic website.

Gehri chose to start her first batch of kombucha the traditional way — brewing four bags of black tea in a large glass jar, adding sugar and finishing it off with the key ingredient: a “baby” kombucha culture that resembles a large mushroom, Gehri said.

Gehri bought her baby kombucha culture on Craigslist for $5, and, two batches later, she is still able to use the original live culture she purchased.

The baby grows into a “mother” that produces new baby cultures, which are then peeled off to start new batches of kombucha tea, Gehri said.

Gehri keeps each batch in her warm, dark hall closet for one to two weeks, depending on how strong she wants it, she said.

One batch produces four to five 16-ounce kombucha bottles, which she places in the refrigerator. 

The downtown Community Food Co-op sold more than 31,000 bottles of kombucha in 2011, and they sell a daily average of 86 bottles per day, said Michael Elkins, the Cordata Co-op grocery manager.

Elkins encourages home brewing kombucha and believes it is a cost-efficient method.

“It’s certainly a more environmentally friendly and sustainable method than buying bottles and bottles of it,” he said.

“I know a lot of people who have fermented their own vegetables, and I thought, ‘I just want to try this — it sounds really cool,’” Gehri said.

Gehri never intends to sell her kombucha.

“I’m making it for my own health,” she said. “So I’m just planning on having my own supply to have whenever I feel like drinking it.”

Related articles:

<![CDATA[]]>

• Crazy
  for kombucha