Let's Talk About Jun/Kombucha

[drietz]

I'm curious if any of you brew jun, which is a fermented tea beverage much like kombucha, but differing in its substrate - green tea and honey as opposed to black tea and sugar.

Jun seems to be a lot less "popular" than kombucha, which means there's not a whole lot of confidence-inspiring information out there. Can I just train one of my kombucha SCOBYs to ferment with honey? If not, can I create a culture from scratch, like I did with my sourdough starters?

Looking forward to hearing about any other fermentables you all have going at the moment, too!

[Octave]

Yes, you can use your kombucha SCOBY to brew Jun. We have done this before. My suggestion is to take part of your SCOBY (don't take the whole thing in case this doesn't work) and move it over to a batch that is about 75% kombucha (black tea and sugar) and 25% jun (green tea and honey). On the next batch move to 50/50, then to 25/75 and finally to 100% jun ingredients. The SCOBY culture needs some time to adjust to the new environment.

On that note, remember that jun ferments better at a cooler temperature rather than kombucha which I find works well in slightly warmer conditions. So keep it in a cool, dark place in your home.