all pictures benjamin reynolds 2018
1 SCOBY
1 big ole pot of tea made with
3-4 parts unhulled barley
1 part blend of unloved tea
very slight pinch of whole leaf stevia because we were feeling DANGEROUS
1&1/12 part water to fill the jar up proper where the instruction said to
This was something that I just sort of ended up having to do since it came up during our first class meeting, at the NW Tea Festival, has entire chapters and subsections dedicated to it in both The Art of Fermentation and The Noma Guide to Fermentation, and I talked about it a couple times with Evan down at Encore Chocolates and Teas, so here we are. ‘Bucha time. Boochin’ it up.
I got a little excited and didn’t photo all my dry ingredients (unhulled barley, a home-made chai tea and spice blend, shou pu-erh and stevia leaf) and the SCOBY while it was still in its bag and being transferred into the jar.
Anyways, first we brew our tea, which I did by boiling, then simmering it in a pot for about 15-20 minutes before allowing to cool back down to room temperature. Then I opened up the bag containing the other bag that contained the SCOBY and tea suspension and opened that up over the mouth of my fermentation vessel, added the tea, put a coffee filter and wrapped a rubber band around it that the culture can obtain oxygen. Let it go for a week. Sampled it part way through. Bottled it. It wasn’t fizzy just yet, but it got fizzy in the bottle.
Immediately repeat, but with different ingredients, this time: a tea I didn’t like with fennel, coriander and cinnamon mixed in, shou pu-erh&green pu-erh tuo-cha, a black tea whose defining feature was somebody mixed candy sugar in, some green tea I had steeped twice, a spice marketed as “Asian nutmeg”, a cylinder-block of Latin American dried sugar and another pinch of danger stevia leaf just in case the SCOBY booger was used to that. Put it in the jar and waited. Ended up removing the top SCOBY that had grown from the last time ’cause it weird and baggy and mold began to very slightly develop atop, added a tablespoon and a half verjus to murder some microbes. Just gonna fish out the original SCOBY and maybe do Sandor Katz’s “candy” recipe with it. This one got fizzy still in the big jar.