Commercial vs Home


Homemade Kombucha is one of the easiest ferments to do. You get to choose the type
and amount of sugar and tea and its quality is superior to commercial because the
cultures are not suppressed and/or pasteurized.

You know what is going in it - forget about worrying about what they use to preserve or
flavor it with - this can be quite the ordeal when on a special diet or if you have allergies.

You are able to choose your own flavoring or other additional supplements to put in.
Typically the easiest and most delicious way is to add your favorite juice to it - such as
grape juice, tropical, coconut, cranberry, orange juice, lemonade, etc!

You are able to tweak it to satisfy your tastes and dietary needs, making it less or more
sweet as needed (even after its done - its such a flexible culture to work with). This is great
for diabetics or anyone concerned with the sugar content involved. You can have one
bottle sweetened with sugar and another plain - each person in your family can create
their own custom kombucha.

You can experiment with non-caffeinated teas, such as Rooibos, which has proven to
culture successfully for many people (the commercial brands are made with green, black
or white teas, all caffeinated).

You will have excess kombucha mushrooms to do whatever you want with - share, dry
and give to your dogs as a chew toy, toss around for fun or use as a bath or pool toy, clean
with it (or the kombucha liquid). The scobys and kombucha are especially known to make
excellent additions to garden compost too or to acidify/lower the ph in your soil. Some
people have even found medicinal use from taping scoby's to their feet or blending them
into mush to treat foot or nail fungus, etc. The kombucha liquid can also sometimes help
with dandruff and other skin-balancing issues (eczema, etc). Read more about other uses.
What are the reasons behind all the recommendations to use genuine kombucha mushrooms
to make home-made kombucha, vs buying it at the store?

Like most things in life, a good thing just cannot be packaged or processed. It always
ends up taking away some portion of the quality or essence of the food when creating
something 'safe' and with a shelf life. Commercial Kombucha found in stores is limited
by the bottling process. Companies need to suppress or halt yeast fermentation and
culturing in order to prevent continued carbonation or the bottles could explode. This
process leaves you with commercial kombucha which, while still good, typically has high
acid and/or suppressed culture, and less varieties of bacteria and yeast.

Many of the commercial kombucha's are pasteurized, negating the many health benefits
one can derive from the probiotic content in the drink (the heat during pasteurization kills
the probiotics found in the kombucha).

Kombucha 'teas' sold in tea bags, while nice, do not offer the same qualities that exist
in pure raw kombucha liquid (or even commercial kombucha) - including the probiotic
content, acid contents and many of the other natural healthful by-products that occur
specifically during fermentation.

A genuine kombucha mushroom is self-sustainable, since it propagates a new baby
kombucha mushroom each time (to be used in your next batch). If this was the case with
commercial, they would go out of business over-night.

The cost you will be saving is enormous. Commercial kombucha is pricey. Learning
how to make your own beverages at home will save you a bundle in the long run.

    If you were to go through two or three store-bought 16-oz kombucha bottles a week, that
    would total between approx. $250-$622 a year. On the other hand, the cost of the tea
    bags and sugar needed to make this same amount at home will cost you far less,
    coming out to only around $13-$20 a year for the same amount (32-48 oz a week).

    That is a substantial savings of around 94%! You can still easily come out ahead even
    after investing in some exotic and fun flavorings to add to your kombucha with that kind of
    savings.

    To break that down, if you want to make 32 oz (4 cups, or a quart) of kombucha a week, you will spend
    approx. $5 for sugar (10 lb bag) which has enough sugar for 90 uses. That's just shy of 2 years' worth
    of sugar (or roughly $2.50 a year). For a year's worth of bulk organic green tea, the cost comes out to
    about 10 cents a bag, (or approximately 2 bags per batch at $10.40 a year). This totals around $13 for
    32 oz a week, or about $20 for 48 oz a week. With the average price range of commercial kombucha at
    $2.40 to $3.99 a bottle you will spend a minimum of $250 a year if you purchase two 16-oz bottles at
    $2.40 or a maximum of $622 a year when purchasing three 16-oz bottles at $3.99. Of course, if you
    bought one at the store every day, you'd be spending upwards of $875 to $1,456 a year. Calculations
    do not include the cost of water as that can vary widely from tap to store-bought, though the total
    would be very small for the 13 gallons needed a year at 4 quarts a week.
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