by AlexandraPchb on Tue Mar 10, 2015 3:44 am
PS, might not be interesting to you but I experimented with a supposingly live kombucha from a shop here in UK (hard to find kombucha here, it's not popular enough yet) and it was packaged in a clear bottle, in a bright shop, and has a really long expiry date. Obviously i couldn't find out when the batch was made, but I thought "yeah right, the bacteria will be dead with the light going through that bottle" plus I thought the bacteria would die slowly once it had ran out of food.
Well, I did try to make a SCOBY using that liquid. I had NO faith at all. Added sweetened tea etc, and it took AGES. About 3 weeks, but...there was a little scoby on it, and tasted of kombucha vinegar!!!.
Now, what I don't know is whether there were cultures in that kombucha, OR whether the acidity of the liquid contributed to the right conditions to attract the cultures in the air, required for that to grow. After all, it must be able to create itself, since someone started making it some time in history, he can't have been given a scoby by an Angel? (actually...)
I thought it was an interesting experiment anyway. It was like having a little pet living in conditions I never thought it would be born!