Beef Free Plain Kombucha
Brewing your own kombucha at home is one of those deeply satisfying kitchen projects that rewards patience with something genuinely delicious. The process starts with a strong, dark cup of black tea sweetened with plain sugar, which the SCOBY slowly transforms over the course of a week or more into a tangy, lightly fizzy drink that tastes nothing like the overly sweet tea you started with. Watching that fermentation happen — the SCOBY doing its quiet, living work on the countertop — is oddly mesmerizing. Temperature matters more than you might expect here, so the recipe walks you through cooling the tea properly before the SCOBY ever touches it, protecting the culture and setting up a healthy ferment. By day seven you can start tasting daily, dialing in exactly how tart or mellow you want the final result to be. Every batch also gives you starter liquid for the next one, so once you're in the rhythm, you essentially have an endless supply. It's naturally free of any animal-derived ingredients, making it a clean, wholesome drink that fits effortlessly into a wide range of eating habits.
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Learn more →Ingredients
8 servings
- 3.5 quarts filtered water, divided
- 4 bags plain black tea (or 1 tbsp loose-leaf black tea)
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast)
- ½ cup starter liquid (unflavored, unpasteurized kombucha from a previous batch or store-bought raw kombucha)
Instructions
- 1
Bring 1 quart of the filtered water to a boil in a large pot. Remove from heat, add the tea bags (or loose-leaf tea in a strainer), and steep for 5–7 minutes, until the tea is deep amber and strongly brewed. Remove and discard the tea bags or strainer.
- 2
Add the sugar to the hot tea and stir with a long-handled spoon until fully dissolved, about 1 minute.
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