Capsaicin Free Plain Kombucha
Brewing your own kombucha at home is one of those deeply satisfying kitchen projects that rewards patience with something genuinely delicious — tangy, lightly fizzy, and alive with probiotic goodness. This recipe keeps things beautifully simple: just black tea, sugar, water, a SCOBY, and a splash of starter liquid to kick off fermentation. For anyone avoiding capsaicin, store-bought kombucha can occasionally hide spicy or pepper-derived flavorings in "original" or "plain" varieties, so making your own from scratch removes all the guesswork entirely. The process is mostly hands-off — you steep, cool, combine, and then let time do the heavy lifting over seven to fourteen days. Tasting daily starting on day seven is genuinely fun, as you watch the brew shift from sweet tea to something bracingly tart and complex. The finished result is clean, unflavored, and completely customizable for future batches once you've saved your SCOBY and starter liquid. It's the kind of recipe that quickly becomes a weekly ritual.
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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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