Kombucha - pleasure and great benefits

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Many of us remember how, in childhood, my grandmother poured sour liquid from a three-liter jar in which something similar to a jellyfish floated in the summer. We added sugar to the drink, and it perfectly quenched our thirst. This drink used to be made using kombucha, and today I would like to remind you what it is and how it is prepared.

On the Internet, people often ask where to get kombucha, to which residents of the former USSR say that you can grow it yourself. To do this, add a little sugar to a sufficiently large amount of strong tea leaves and put in a warm place for a month and a half. During this period, an unsightly-looking film first forms on the tea leaves, which then grows into a full-fledged multilayer kombucha.

To make a drink, take a small plate of the mushroom, put it in a 3-liter jar and pour it with cold sweetened weak tea (5-6 tablespoons of tea leaves per liter). In the first three days, there may not be any reaction in the jar, but after a week the fungus will emerge, and the tea will turn into tea kvass. For improvementcharacteristics of the drink, you can add honey, aromatic herbs to the topped-up tea.

In order for kombucha to develop well and not get sick (it is, after all, a living organism), certain conditions must be observed:

• 

  don't keep the jar of tea in the light or by the window, because the mushroom does not like the sun's rays and drafts;

• do not close the jar with a lid - it is better to tie it with a cloth;
• optimum temperature for reproducing a drink is about 25 C (not lower than 17 C!);
• you can’t pour sugar on the mushroom, it should be added only previously dissolved in tea;
• mushroom should be washed, preferably in spring water, in summer - once every two weeks (weekly, if the temperature is not optimal), in winter - once every three to four weeks.

Many centuries ago, warriors of ancient Japan discovered the benefits of kombucha. It was used as a disinfectant for wounds and suppuration, helped with disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. And after entering Europe and Russia (during the Russo-Japanese War), other properties of it were discovered. Kombucha drink helped with sore throats, stomatitis, lowered cholesterol, contributed to an increase in lactic acid beneficial bacteria, gave positive results in neurasthenia, poisoning, angina pectoris, poisoning, and well supported a person with oncological diseases. Medicines are made from it - jellyfish and bacteriocidins.

Chemical analysis of kombucha infusion revealed the presence of six types of acids,enzymes, caffeine, B vitamins, plenty of vitamin C and the PP group.

However, kombucha, like many medicinal infusions, has contraindications for use. It is not recommended to take insulin-dependent diabetics, people suffering from fungal diseases (due to the sugar content in the infusion). You can not drink it with an open stomach ulcer, gastritis. With a drink made on the basis of green tea, you need to be careful with hypotension. Also, you can not drink infusions overexposed in time and infusions made on the basis of an old, diseased fungus.

Otherwise, the use of kombucha is extensive - you can do relaxing baths with it (0.25 liters of monthly aged tea kvass per bath), lotions (a mixture of mineral water and monthly aged tea kvass), deodorants (wipe in areas of sweating), hair rinses, cream for flaky skin (with olive oil). It helps well in the treatment of colds, as well as bee stings. Such an "assistant" will be indispensable in the household, especially since it will not be difficult to grow it.