komboooocha

add another to my menagerie.
~~tif's foster home for wayward microbeasties~~
i've just adopted a kombucha mommy!!!
joanne, our chef assistant in class, brought in her pitcher of kombucha, a veritable extended family of kombucha babies and mothers just begging for a new home and some food.
the "mothers" (some people call them "mushrooms"~~but they're not; so why not just have fun and anthropomorphize? that's what i'm sayin'. ) are whitish gelatinous discs~~colonies of yeasts and bacteria~~that create what we call kombucha. you can pick one up and it holds its form. it reminds me of an alien or alien brain (of all the ones i've seen in my experience. . !).
so. i had already made a tea ~ of black tea and organic white sugar ~ and dumped a starter-bottle of live kombucha tea (with floaties) in there already.
so when i got home, i just tipped over the mason transport-jar and let the big thick mommy slide on out into the waiting tea. by morning, it was effervescing, forming mounds of tiny white bubbles on top. and it smells great. vinegary, but still sweet with unkombucha'd sugar.

it is my intention to keep you updated on the (ever-so-fascinating! i know. ;) progress of our kombucha baby via my food blog, food-a-file (i already started it! ~ http://food-a-file.blogspot.com/ ). and you know i'll take photos!

for an extensive and amusingly anecdotal article about kombucha, its origins, and health benefits go here:
http://w3.gorge.net/chriss/kombucha.htm

photos:
the kombucha with mommy floating, bubbles bubbling.
close up.
with her breathable linen hat on, which she wears in the cool cupboard downstairs.