When buying Kombucha in the supermarket we can see that particles are condensed in the bottom of the bottle. Aside, in a glass bowl you add black tea (a cup) and 5 tablespoons of sugar and insert the liquid from the Kombucha bottle from the supermarket. The tea must have been at room temperature.
In 4 days we can see a first transparent veil that appears in the container. From this moment the growth is faster, and in 4 days we can see that the colony of bacteria covered the entire container.
This is Scoby obtained from the bottle of kombucha that I bought at the supermarket. This will be the mother to insert in larger containers.
We follow the recipe provided by the teachers, and duplicate it by 3 in quantity to be able to have the necessary proportion for the container. In this case we used like 1 ltr of black tea, 480 gr of white sugar.
In order to compare results, we use two containers with two different types of tea in the same proportion. 1. Black tea and 2. Green tea.
In the container of black tea we add a natural dye, in this case tumeric to obtain an intense yellow color in the final result
To add the tumeric to the kombucha it is better to dilute it with hot water to infuse it and mix it better with the black tea of the container. Water is part of the established measure of liters but with the dye.
Once both types of tea cooled to room temperature, we added the scoby to the containers, with clean hands trying to stay on the surface.
Finally the container must be covered with a cloth, so that it is not contaminated with dirt and insects, but that it can obtain oxygen for its growth. We decided to use black cloth, so that it did not have much ambient light.
12 - oct to 23 oct
Detail of scoby thickness
With clean hands we removed the scoby of the tea from kombucha and we could in another container to wash it with water and remove small impurities from the future leather.
The scoby is left to dry on a porous surface, in this case wood to facilitate drying, absorbing the wood scooby liquids.
In 6 days we can see the final result. The leather is a thick 1 millimeter with enough transparency. The natural dye has been satisfactory, and the color obtained has been the expected intense yellow.
Detail of the result. Kombucha leather