Tag: tea

Kombucha

You’ve probably seen those expensive bottles of kombucha tea at the health food store, but did you know you can make it for pennies? Of course, if you don’t like it, you don’t give a crap. Most people seem to either love or hate it. Not too many falling to the indifferent spot in the middle. If you hate the smell or taste of vinegar, than you might as well move along now. This will not interest you.

A few weeks ago, I got a scoby from Steph and started up my own batch. Here is my second batch fermenting away:

That’s the one I’m currently drinking. Batch three is about to be bottled. The basic recipe is 3 quarts filtered water, 1 cup sugar and 3 green tea bags. I have not added any additional flavors although some people do. For the third batch I backed off the sugar by about 1/8 cup as it seemed just a bit too sweet.

Here’s my main scoby resting while I wash out his house and bottle up the finished tea:

Looks pretty weird, right?

And here it is all bottled up ready to go in the fridge.

I haven’t really noticed any benefits, I just enjoy it. And I’m using it to replace evil Coke Zero in my life.

So, I guess I’m now officially a dirty hippy.

POM Wonderful POM Tea

When someone emails me and says “hey, can we send you free stuff?” my answer tends to be “hells yeah!” This never happens of course. Except for the POM Wonderful people. They sent me some juice a while back that I used in various ways. This time they wanted to send me POM teas. Sure!

Four teas arrived: Pomegranate Lychee Green, Pomegranate Hibiscus Green, Pomegranate Wildberry White and Pomegranate Blackberry Tea. I usually drink my tea unsweetened or lightly sweetened so I gravitated towards the two light teas, the hibiscus and wildberry. I liked the sweetness level of those but my overall favorite was the lychee. Since lychees are sort of a perfumed, floral experience, no one will be surprised by this given my love of rosewater, lavender, etc. in food. I can see myself craving that one from time to time. The non-light teas weren’t hideously sweet. I just don’t need as much sugar as they provide. And to me 140 calories is a lot to blow on a beverage. Yeah, the bottle is supposed to be two servings. But seriously, who drinks half?