When Bucha Brew hits your lips, do you ever wonder how we make it?

Well... first we brew organic black and green tea. After brewing for about an hour it yields 1500 litres. Next we add organic cane sugar until its completely dissolved and then we add cold water to bring the tea broth down to room temp.

In the third step we get the SCOBY involved. This is where we add the symbiotic culture of (good) bacteria and yeast. The layers of this SCOBY float on top, break down the sugar and turn it into carbon dioxide, beneficial acetic acids and trace amounts of alcohol.

Fermentation is next, and this generally lasts 30-45 days here at Bucha Brew. The longer it ferments, the more time the SCOBY has to eat up any residual sugar that is left in the brew.  Longer fermentation = Less sugar.  It's a fine balance, if it's left too long the kombucha will be very acidic resulting in a vinegary unpleasant drink.  We test many elements as the kombucha ferments to ensure we don’t let the SCOBY overwork.

Once the kombucha hits our target acidity level and is below 1% alcohol we are ready to add our organic, in house juiced fruits to flavour our kombucha. At this point, we can chill it down to 2 degree celsius and add a small amount of carbonation.

The last step in the process is all about packaging it up so that we can ship it to stores near you.  Our kombucha (unlike our shelf-stable Fun Fizzy Water) must be kept refrigerated, otherwise it will re-ferment in the can and could burst right out of the packaging. So we keep our kombucha cold, and we suggest that you do  too! 

We put a lot of love into every batch, and now you know what we do at every step along the way!


Thanks for reading,


-Kara 

Fun Fact: We talked about how we get the alcohol content below 1%, but did you know that Arlo Hard Kombucha keeps it naturally boozy (around 4% alcohol) Check out their instagram page to find them in stores. @arlokombucha