Do it yourself. At home.

First of all, ‘SCOBY’ stands for a ‘symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast’. It is a disk-shaped culture which facilitates the fermentation process whereby sweet tea is converted to kombucha. Awesome part is that the SCOBY used in the Home-kit is the same culture we use for fermenting our entire range of VIGO Kombucha products.

Each SCOBY is unique and is the result of the environment it has been kept in. The scoby will be home to many different yeasts such as brettanomyces bruxellensis and schizosaccharomyces pombe as well as many species of bacteria that help to increase the acidity.

You don’t need to buy expensive equipment to get started – you might even find you already have everything you need. A large glass jar is ideal as it allows you to see what is happening, although ceramic can be used if it has a food-grade glaze. A wide-mouthed vessel is better as it gives more surface area and leads to a quicker ferment.

You will need only four ingredients:

• VIGO® Home-Kit
• Water
• Tea
• Sugar

• Black tea is considered best as it contains the nutrients that the scoby likes. It can produce quite a full, fruity flavour but many people prefer to do a mix of teas such as half black and half green or white tea
• Either teabags or loose tea can be used. Tea that has added oils such as Earl Grey should be avoided
• Ordinary cane sugar is normally used, less refined sugars will work but can lead to changes in flavour
• If your SCOBY sinks to the bottom, do not worry, it is still active
• Plastic and metal containers should be avoided
• The longer kombucha is fermented the less sugar will remain