Rachael Brugger
If you ’re unexampled to the human beings of sour foods and boozing , you might just be dipping your toe into the kingdom of kombucha . It ’s a fermented tea - and - saccharide drink that ’s pretty commonly available in grocery stores , occasionally on pat at restaurants , and often brewing on top of your crazy , health - crank champion ’s icebox .
“ Traditional kombucha , or sugar kombucha , is the most vulgar kombucha found commercially and set up at home , ” says Eric Childs — or Kombuchman ( ‘ Buchman for short)—founder and chief operating officer of probiotic - tea leaf beer maker and fermentation - homebrew supplierKombucha Brooklynand co - author ofKombucha ! The Amazing Probiotic Tea that Cleanses , Heals , Energizes and Detoxifies(Avery , 2013 ) .
This traditionalkombuchais just the start of probiotic- and constitutional - pane - tamp down fermented potable , though . A lesser - do it cousin to kombucha , jun ( pronounced either “ joon ” or “ jun , ” according to Childs ) , works using the same agitation principles but different ingredients . Jun requires love and green tea leaf , whereas kombucha is produced with sugar and either green or black teatime . Both fermented teas originate centuries ago in Asia . Childs say jun is think to come from the Tibet region , specifically .
Jun Culture
Also like kombucha , jun begins with a cellulose - cake starter , which go by many names : symbiotic culture of bacteria and barm ( SCOBY ) , mushroom , culture or mother . Jun SCOBYs and kombucha SCOBYs are not the same — they ca n’t be mixed and tally . Rather , they have independently developed to be able-bodied to digest sugar ( kombucha ) andhoney(jun ) . There are other divergence , too .
“ Jun SCOBYs are very white in color , ” Childs suppose . “ In traditional kombucha SCOBYs , you ’ll see a motley of color , from white to dark brown . ”
The jun SCOBY has even more bacteria and yeast than a kombucha SCOBY ( see it under a microscope in this picture from the KBBK blog [ https://www.kombuchabrooklyn.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/honey_vs_sugar_SCOBY.png ] ) , and also get quicker . child ’ experience says they produce about double as fast as kombucha SCOBYs . You might actually be startled , as I was , to find your SCOBY double overnight ! One theory for this , says Childs , is “ because love has rude antimicrobial properties to it . In parliamentary law for the SCOBY to outlive , it learned to multiply quicker . ”
Still , “ a fatty SCOBY does n’t inevitably think of the best SCOBY , ” Childs continues , as it ’s the bacterial universe , not the size of the SCOBY that really matter in fermentation . There ’s a slender difference in optimum temperature , too . A jun SCOBY will still have good fermentation activity down to 64 or 65 degree F , whereas a kombucha SCOBY slows zymolysis around 68 degrees F.
Make Jun at Home
Making your own batch of jun at home is passably simple . All you take are :
Childs say jun brew faster than kombucha , so start testing yours after a few days . The gustatory perception will exchange as the love is abide by the SCOBY . you’re able to do a 2d unrest with jun , too , bottle it and supply flavors . Adding anything beyond tea and dear is better done in a secondary watercraft so your experimentation do n’t affect the SCOBY itself .
Is Jun For You?
“ Is jun the better kombucha ? We get asked that all the time , ” Childs says . “ I do n’t think so . Is honey the well sweetener ? Well , yeah . ” He points out , though , that the sweeteners for both drinks are used to tip the SCOBY , not sweeten the brew .
When someone looks to Childs for advice on how to come out brew a fermented tea , he first point them to kombucha . Jun is more like the next grade of fermented beverages . For starter , he direct out that dearest is expensive — room more so than sugar .
have entree to the right honey is important , too . Different types of honey yield different sapidity . shaver cuss by goldenrod love from New York for KBBK ’s jun brewage .
Working with dear in this style requires a little more fermentation finesse , too .
“ Fermenting honey has a smaller windowpane of pardon in terms of the flavor profile , ” Childs tell . “ When you ferment honey too much , you get really bready , evenhandedly yeasty , not - so - pleasant flavors . ” Though some people like this .
As word spread about kombucha ’s cousin , the jun market is expanding quickly . KBBK has see a five - fold growth in its jun SCOBY sales in just two age . What was once a difficult brewage to learn about is becoming more approachable to DIYers , and there ’s no teacher like manpower - on experiment .
