08.02.07
Culture
Guess what this is!
Yum, yum!
I’m on a bit of a Kombucha kick, read a little article in Craft about it and thought I’d try my hand at making it myself, sort of as the article describes but using starter from a bottle bought at the local Henry’s.
We’ll see. Definitely doing it in the garage next time, if this batch doesn’t make me violently ill and turn me off the whole thing. I do not like fermentation smells. Horse farts and sheep burps are one thing, but the kitchen smells a bit like a dive bar when you walk past where the culture is growing. It’s that nasty drunk person ketone smell. Yergh.
I was drinking some of this yesterday and got a mouthful of translucent gelatinous goop and realized: Dang, they could be putting anything into this (thinking of a specific male bodily fluid, although the goop was not bitter tasting nor chlorine-y smelling) and we happy little hippies would just be chugging it down and thinking, “Yum! Organic raw culture! Yum! Live bacteria! Whee!”
There’s lots of floaty stuff in there. Let’s just hope the bottlers are extremely gruntled. 
It might be an acquired taste, I think it tastes like cider. Sour-sweet, like hard cider, not the kind you give the kids. Well, not the kind you give the kids if you want them to have any brain function when they grow up.
Kirsten said,
August 2, 2007 at 8:55 am
That’s pretty narly lookin’! Is that it’s acutal size? Don’t let it come get you while you sleep!
LoriO said,
August 2, 2007 at 10:19 am
And I thought I was doing really good by replacing my daily Diet Coke with a Green/Black Tea+Pomegranate Juice mixture. All those antioxidants, you know.
I don’t know when I’ll be ready to try Kombucha though. That stuff looks knarly. Glerg.
Yoly said,
August 2, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I still don’t know what it is… what is it?
Crissy said,
August 2, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Yikes…that picture actually made my skin crawl. I think my sister-in-law tried to get me to drink that when she was last here. Luckily it was on the list of things that I should “ask your doctor about first”
john said,
August 2, 2007 at 5:38 pm
not sure what it is, but i think i wanna eat it.
Teresa said,
August 2, 2007 at 9:26 pm
My sister and her dh, who both LOVE their tea, drink that stuff regularly. They’re both pretty healthy. They’ve also done some of that cleansing-activity-that-sounded-so-not-what-I’d-ever-do-to MY -body-that-I-blocked out the details. Enjoy…..
PS I’ve been in Oceanside all week and did yarn crawls in Encinitas and La Mesa. Details to come soon on my blog.
Sue said,
August 3, 2007 at 6:34 pm
My kombucha’s have never looked like that or smelled to bad either !!! Be careful.
Blessings Sue
Ande said,
August 4, 2007 at 9:10 am
Urgh, it looks nasty! You put that in your mouth? (snicker snicker) All the power to you, sister but I don’t think I’m inspired enough to try it.
Hilari said,
August 7, 2007 at 10:49 am
that looks so gross, i couldn’t possibly allow that anywhere near my mouth!!! I’m sort of retching now just thinking about it.
GRace said,
August 7, 2007 at 3:31 pm
My kombucha sure does not look like that. I won’t recommend you drinking that. If you need a culture, you can come by my place and pick one up. (I am in Carmel valley)