Flavoring Kombucha

Let’s Flavor!

For kombucha homebrewers out there, flavoring their ‘buch is an exciting step. There are seemingly infinite possibilities for how you can flavor your kombucha during a second fermentation (F2) process. Brewers can focus on herbal flavors, fruity flavors, or leave it plain as well. While Brewmaster Ryan prefers the tangy and fruity types, his partner Eddie prefers the savory and herbal ones. We both agree that seeing the end results of their efforts in flavoring is a rewarding experience indeed! So, in this post, we will talk about some flavor ideas that we think are worth a try.

Ingredients for Flavoring

Before we discuss flavoring examples, it’s important to have an idea about how homebrewers will get those flavors to begin with. A few important questions to ask and considerations to make arise when getting the ingredients:

Are the ingredients accessible? Will I need to jump through hoops to find them? Metaphor aside, don’t make this difficult for yourself. We at a Bucha Bros will always recommend shopping locally and supporting your local businesses; local retailers would be glad to help you find what you’re looking for. High quality local ingredients can only improve the health benefits of Kombucha!

How long do the ingredients last in the fridge, out at room temperature, or even frozen? Temperature abuse may not be the first thing homebrewers think of when they store their ingredients, but it’s extremely important in the food and beverage industry, and should be no different at home. Perishable produce like fruits or vegetables may need to be kept refrigerated or stored away from direct sunlight until ready to use for brewing. The fresher the better (but still don’t waste ingredients if they’re not peak freshness; find another use for them) and never, ever use moldy or rotten ingredients!

How much of the ingredient will I need? Should homebrewers buy a 8-pack case full of strawberries if they’re only brewing a 6 12-oz bottles worth of kombucha for themselves? Maybe for a few strawberry pies at a large gathering, but not for homebrewing. Example aside, it’s not always clear how much of an ingredient to gather. It’s a good idea to research a potential recipe to follow. With the strawberry example, a quarter cup of pureed strawberries is enough to make a real strong fruity bottle of ‘buch. It may also be smart to start small and experiment. Never waste unused ingredients!

Would this even taste good? This last one is indeed an important question to ask. We’ve tried experimenting with asparagus in our brew just to see what would happen. If you could have guessed, it isn’t the most pleasant flavor, and we put the asparagus in the coffin to rest for good. “No stone must be left unturned!” is our motto at Bucha Bros, LLC (no it isn’t). We’ve also experimented with jalepeno, which didn’t taste anything extraordinary (to Ryan at least, he doesn’t like spicy things), but is one of those flavors worth refining and giving a second shot at brewing. Trial and error helps us learn to brew even better kombucha, just like life.

Other Considerations

You may also have other important considerations in homebrewing like whether:

The ingredient will even fit in the bottle you’re using to ferment F2, and whether the ingredient can be taken out of the bottle after they’ve absorbed some of the fermented tea.

How much time is needed for the F2 bottles to sit out for, for the flavor the homebrewer is trying to develop. Fruit can flavor a bit longer than herbs can without ruining the final taste.

You might not even think about any of these things. You might just go right ahead to tossing ingredients in the fermentation bottles and crossing your fingers you didn’t waste your ‘buch. However, we mean it when we say it is important to plan these things out. After all, homebrewing should be fun and not rushed.

Fruity Flavoring

We find that black tea is a strong base for fruit flavors and therefore is recommended to use due to its bold flavor that doesn’t let fruit completely take over the taste. We do, however, encourage you to try different tea bases with the fruit you use; you never know what the result may be. When making a fruity flavored kombucha, it is important to know ahead of time what you want to flavor with, go figure!

Are you going to use fresh fruit, freeze-dried or dehydrated fruit, frozen fruit, powdered fruit, or fruit juice? These are all real choices to make. We have tried them all, and find that the more broken down the form of the fruit is, the easier it is for the yeast in the kombucha to eat the sugars and add pleasant flavoring and carbonation to the ‘buch. What we mean by this is, if you have a whole fruit chunk or say, a berry, that is not muddled or has the flesh of the fruit and juices exposed, then your kombucha may struggle to develop flavor this way due to the barrier of the skin between the fruit and liquid.

Powdered fruit can work, but it can be tricky if you don’t read the ingredient label carefully. You may find that you just have a bag of, say, apple fiber, and not actual apple flesh that even smells or tastes like the fruit. If brewmaster Ryan is going to use berries, he would muddle them, meaning he would mash them in a bowl. If the fruit is too tough, he may then microwave the muddled fruit for a bit to further release the juices, so that it helps feed the yeast the fruit sugar and therefore result in a better flavoring outcome.

When it comes to temperature, it may be best not to put any fruit that is too hot or too cold, say, after microwaving or taken right out of the freezer. I would let both frozen and microwaved fruit get up or down to near room temperature (or thaw) before putting into my ‘buch so it does not kill or disturb the yeast within the ‘buch. If you used six 12 to 16 oz bottles to hold your first fermentation kombucha and are ready to do a second fermentation, you can experiment with adding a couple teaspoons to one quarter cup of your favorite fruit to each bottle of kombucha, small enough to fit in the mouth of the bottle, of course. Imagine trying to shove a whole orange in your bottle, it would shatter! 

Next, homebrewers would twist on the cap (or cover the bottle) and shake a bit in order to get the kombucha fully blended with the fruit. Fruit pieces in kombucha should last quite a long time due to kombucha’s acidic nature and should not go bad as long as they’re submerged inside your ‘buch (for a few weeks at least, don’t quote us though).

Then finally, you would wait 3 days and no more than 7 days before straining out the ‘buch into a container with a spout, such as like we use, a four-cup measuring cup. We use this because the next step is pouring the now filtered kombucha back into the bottle used for the fermentation process (after cleaning first, however, remember never to use anti-bacterial soap) using a funnel, fill your clean bottle back up, and then refrigerate. For a more in-depth explanation of second fermentation, check it out here!

Apple, pear, blueberry, strawberry, grape, raspberry, blackberry, watermelon, pineapple, orange, pumpkin, dragon fruit, kiwi, mango, coconut, bramble, cranberry, currant, and Cherry are just some of the numerous fruits you can use in your fruity flavored kombucha! Can you think of any other fruits worthy of flavoring kombucha with?

Herbal Flavoring

If you choose to make herbal kombucha, it is recommended to use a green tea base due to its milder flavor that lets herbal notes shine, but then again, the choice of a tea-base is yours; we honesty find black tea works just fine. Unlike fruit, just a little bit of herbs goes a long way; 1/4 teaspoon to a couple teaspoons may be plenty with certain herbs. The time it takes flavoring using those herbs is relatively short. We recommend fermenting between 2 days and no more than 3 to 5 days. You can try to use cheap store bought herbs, but we honestly recommend organic and whole sprigs or leaves in order to flavor your herbal ‘buch.

We’ll be honest, when we first experimented with our Fall lavender kombucha, we originally tested lavender 5 days fermenting, and we found that it tasted like soap! Herbs do not take long to flavor. Mint works similarly where it ends up tasting like minty toothpaste if left fermenting for far too long. Because herbs don’t contain sugar unlike fruit, it may therefore be important to consider adding just a tiny bit of added sweetener if you prefer a sweeter or more carbonated herbal ‘buch. Something like just a half to a teaspoon of organic granulated sugar or honey can work just right for your kombucha.

We repeat, a little goes a long way. An amount as small as 1/8 of a teaspoon all the way to a whole teaspoon or two are really enough to add to your kombucha to make it perfectly herbal after a few days of fermenting out on the counter before straining and refrigerating.

Cardamom, chamomile, rosemary, lavender, sage, thyme, cinnamon, spearmint, peppermint, vanilla beans, cocoa or cacao powder, peppercorn, turmeric, ginger, hibiscus, and dandelion are just some of the many herbs you can use to make an incredibly tasty herbal kombucha! Can you think of any herbs that may go great in kombucha?

Why Not Both?

Fruits and herbs can also be wonderfully combined, just like how the tea bases can be combined. Again, the possibilities are endless, and we recommend trying different combinations out to see what fits best for your taste.

Strawberry or blueberry mint, blackberry sage, cinnamon apple, cardamom pear, ginger turmeric, cherry or orange vanilla, lemon hibiscus, and loads of other combinations. Can you think of any flavor combinations that might taste wonderful together in kombucha?

If you couldn’t tell, we have a lot of fun coming up with combinations and testing them to see what tastes great and what doesn’t taste so great, so that we can deliver the perfect raw and unpasteurized kombucha at Bucha Bros, LLC. We appreciate you taking the time to read this as we enjoyed writing it. Take care of yourselves and we would love to hear about your own experience with creating your own herbal or fruity kombucha!