From what I read it is a slightly fizzy, fermented tea that is brewed with a special yeast "cake" called a SCOBY (which stands for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast***) and using a tiny bit of a previous batch as a starter. There are many folks that tout some serious health benefits although there are no scientific facts to back it up, but I was quite interested to see what this is ever since I heard Serj Tankian go on about the Kombucha Mushroom People back in my high-school metalhead days...
The kit arrives complete with everything you need except for a fermentation vessel and they recommend brewing half the batch first time in something like a 3 litre Console glass jar. I suppose this allows you to do a bit more "experimentation" when you do it the second time although I figured I would go big or go home first time! Being home alone for the weekend I dusted off my camera, poured myself a pint and made some time on Sunday afternoon to dive in.
- place the tea mix into the small tea bag (similar to a little hop bag really) included in the kit and throw it into the fermentation vessel along with the supplied sugar
- boil up some water and add it to the vessel until the sugar and tea bag are covered, then give it a good stir to dissolve the sugar
- cover with the cloth and let it stand for about 15 minutes so the tea can steep. Once the time is up, remove the little tea bag and give it another stir and allow to cool
- once the brew is at room temperature, snip open the bag containing the starter liquid and pour it in. The starter liquid is supplied for the first batch, but you will have to keep some Kombucha (and your SCOBY) if you plan to make another batch
- next you will carefully drop in the SCOBY and finally cover it with the cloth and/or some paper towels and tie it down with the string or elastic provided
Do remember to check back next week for Part 2, where I will talk about the bottling and to see what kind of experiment I put this little brew through.
Good luck!
Washington Post on Kombucha
Wikipedia article on Kombucha
*** What is Kombucha and why is it healthy for you?