The life lessons I learnt when I started brewing my own kombucha

'm stubborn, I want instant gratification, I'm impatient, a perfectionist, a literal thinker & a bull out of the gate (that's the Taurus in me), and all of these qualities of mine are challenged when I decided to brew my own kombucha.

First things first, kombucha by definition is "a living health drink made by fermenting tea and sugar with the symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts (SCOBY). The SCOBY eats most of the sugar in the tea, transforming the tea into a refreshingly fizzy, slightly sour fermented (but mostly non-alcoholic) beverage". 

Kombucha takes around 7-10 days from start to finish, so back to what I was saying up the ^ (instant gratification, impatient yadda yadda), this process seemed impossible for me. On a recent trip to Adelaide to see my bestie, I was inspired as she had been making her own, I got home and hit up my kombucha lady to see if I could buy a SCOBY from her. I was so nervous (note ^ perfectionist), 'I don't know what to do?!' 'what if I stuff it?!' 'I'll just do it for myself and not let anyone try it'. Turns out I LOVE it, and apparently good at it. So what life lessons have I learnt/still learning

ONE |

Patience "Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting". I had to learn  that this process could not be rushed (if I sit and stare at it, will that make it go quicker?!) and I had to wait while my SCOBY grew and infused all of it's beautiful bacteria into my brew. I remember checking multiple times a day to check if it was ready, but all it needed was time.

TWO |

Imperfection: "when you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target". When I apply myself to something, it HAS to be perfect, even if I do something well, I always downplay and begin with "tell me if you don't like it, I'm not sure how it will taste", because heaven forbid it's not perfect. But with kombucha it's almost as if there is beauty in the imperfection and can easily learn from that in the next batch.

THREE |

Instant gratification: "when you delay instant gratification, you will experience long-term satisfaction", this ties into my impatience but my whole life I have only done things that will get me a pat on the back straight away and I was good at, if I wasn't good, I'd quit, and what I excelled at, I put more effort into ( I know, I know, should be the other way around). But the fact that I couldn't brew my tea, slip in my SCOBY and drink straight away was very challenging.

FOUR |

Beauty of creating things with your bare hands: I treat my SCOBY like it's my baby,  I say good night to it, I love it, I nurture it, and I have watched it grow, I have used it in multiple batches and my own (first generation) SCOBY has grown from the original I bought, like 'I grew that' and it is so deeply satisfying. There is something so primitive about just good ol' creating/cooking with our hands, I use no technology, brew my tea in a huge pot over the stove and store in glass jars covered in tea towel. 

Who would have thought that making some tea would teach me so much about myself, every step along the way has made me proud to my core and I think I've found myself a hobby. I'm currently brewing two plain kombucha and I have a lemon and ginger infusing and carbonating at the moment - sorry Mum that I have taken over the bar with jars of fermented tea.

Any flavour ideas?