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How much kombucha tea should I drink?

 

When you first start brewing and drinking Kombucha Tea, there is a lot of anxiety about how much tea, sugar etc to put in the brew, how long to brew it for and how much to drink. After a while you are whacking the brews together, not recording dates and drinking the amount that suits you.

The amount of kombucha tea that you can drink depends on the individual. The recommended amount to take is around 150 ml three times a day, this equates to about 3 litres a week.

But as with all supplements, probiotics, and foodstuffs, the quantity of Kombucha needed varies per person.

If you have a chronic sickness then you should start with less than the recommendations.

For a healthy person or someone who is sick but not chronic, you may want to start with a half glass (about 100ml or less) per day. The best time to drink Kombucha Tea is in the mornings before breakfast.

After about a week if you haven't been experiencing any side effects like irregular bowel movement etc, then you may increase the amount that you are consuming. Take another half glass in the evening just after your main meal.

After a couple of weeks if there are still no side effects then you may increase the amount again. You can increase the dose to a full wine glass twice a day.

After a while you can increase the amount to three glasses a day. Spread them out during the course of the day.

You don't need to drink more than a glass a day to get the health benefits, but you can drink more if you like. As with anything that you consume , you should consider how your body is reacting to it. If you are getting any bad reactions then try cutting down on the quantities. You be the judge of how much to drink.

Some people like to drink more, some people like to drink less. Everyone is different, so drink and enjoy and find the quantity that suits you.

You may find that when you first start consuming Kombucha tea you will experience some sort of reactions such as bowel movements becoming smellier. This is simply toxins being flushed out of your body. Drink more plain water each day to help flush these toxins out of your body.


How to prevent mould growing on your kombucha? 

  • Make sure there is no mould spores on the tea leaves that you are brewing.
  • The brew must reach a certain PH, not having enough mother liquid could mean that the brew is not acid enough and mould spores could grow.
  • Your brew may be close to a compost or rubbish bin where mold spores may contaminate the mother culture.
  • Cigarette smoke can cause mould to grow on a culture.
  • The cloth you use to cover the fermentation container may have to wide holes allowing mould spores to penetrate through to the scoby. Use a tightly woven clean cloth secured over the mouth of the brewing vessel. Doubling it over may help in preventing mould spores from getting on the culture.
  • Gently rocking the brewing vessel once a day is a very effective way of preventing mold from growing on the culture. Make sure not to rock it to hard or the developing culture will sink to the bottom (don't worry it will form another on the top of the brew again)- Image Below
  • Instead of rocking the brewing vessel, fill a jar with some mother brew and every day, use a plastic teaspoon to gently pour some of the mother liquid over the culture. All that is needed is enough to moisten the culture. Image below
  • Living in the tropics where constantly high humidity levels exist for the majority of the year can make it difficult in preventing mould.
  • Room temperature can effect the speed of growth. If the culture is struggling to grow mould may develop. The best growth is in the range of about 80° to 85° Fahrenheit. However, 21°Centigrade = 70° to 75° Fahrenheit is usually sufficient to grow the Kombucha mushroom.

     

    Too much caffeine? How do I remove caffeine from tea?

    Caffeine is very soluble in water; tea polyphenols are not. Approximately 80% of the water soluble caffeine in tea is released during the first 30 seconds of brewing. So, to remove most of the caffeine from your tea, pour boiling water over the loose-leaf tea leaves or tea bags, allow the tea to steep for 30 seconds, and then discard the liquid. Use the same tea leaves or tea bags with fresh hot water to brew a close to fully decaffeinated cup of tea for drinking or brewing Kombucha Tea.
    This will not detract from the flavor or antioxidant activity of what you drink. This process is very effective, allowing you to enjoy the originally caffeinated teas you love without having to worry about caffeine content.

    You can also buy decaffeinated teas.

     

    Does the decaffeination process affect the health benefits of Green Tea?
    The effect of the decaffeination process on the health benefits of green tea depends on the decaffeination process. The CO2 Process preserves the antioxidants found in green tea by using only spring water and effervescence (CO2 method) to take the caffeine out. Some tea brands use the chemical, ethyl acetate, which can destroy most of the best antioxidants found in green tea. Super critical carbon dioxide (CO2) is the fancy name for using highly pressurized carbon dioxide—the gas that adds bubbles to mineral water—to dissolve caffeine from tea leaves. Two of the major advantages of CO2 are that it does not leave a chemical residue and it has a minimal effect on the flavor and beneficial compounds inherent to the tea. For example, CO2 leaves intact approximately 95% of the original EGCG content of green tea.

    Some healthy green teas are Matcha, Gyokuro, Sencha, Dragon Well, Jasmine Pearls and Green Sea Anemone. Two of the major advantages of CO2 are that it does not leave a chemical residue and it has a minimal effect on the flavor and beneficial compounds inherent to the tea. For example, CO2 leaves intact approximately 95% of the original EGCG content of green tea.

    Kombucha health benefits for a healthy digestive tract

    Fermented beverages or Pro-biotic drinks are good for us, they aid digestive health and they give our digestive system balance. Probiotics - means "for life." It is used to describe products which include microorganisms that are beneficial to health.

    The intestinal microflora is carefully balanced. The human gut is home to around 400 different species of good and bad bugs. However, the good bugs have to share their environment with bad bugs such as Salmonella, E.Coli and Clostridium. The way to balance between good and bad bacteria is to maintain good digestive health, creating stable "microflora". It is generally recommended that probiotics are taken on a daily basis to create this balance.

    Prescription medicines, stress, sickness and especially antibiotics can all disrupt the bacterial balance because as well as killing off the bad bacteria they allso kill off the good bacteria. So you need to restore balance. Probiotics need to be taken regularly to maintain levels of good bacteria. Lactobacillus or lactic acid bacteria is a faciltative bacteria, named as such because most of its members convert lactose and other simple sugars to lactic acid. They are present in the gastrointestinal tract and the vagina. The production of lactic acid makes their environment acidic which inhibits the growth of some harmful bacteria. Large populations lactic acid-producing bacteria regulate the levels of friendly bacteria and reduce the levels of toxic pathogens which cause ill health. Resulting in Kombucha being one of the best skin treatments for acne and an arthritis health drink.

    Even though the beverage is acidic, it does not cause any acidic condition in the stomach; it facilitates and noticeably promotes the digestion. The "yeasts" found in the Kombucha are of a beneficial kind. Organic Kombucha Tea is considered by some as a delicious 'Cancer Foods' or as a natural alternative 'herbal nutrition supplement'.

    By altering the pH of the large intestine to a slightly more acidic level, putrefactive bacteria (those bad for your health and causing foul wind production) tend to be inhibited or destroyed. There is no kombucha danger, It will cause no harm to have even ingested Kombucha mushroom. The pH is altered by active good bacteria producing high levels of lactic acid. The presence of this and other acids inhibit the growth of undesirable bacteria, moulds, mould spores and yeast, particularly the Candida form.

    " Kombucha Cultures .Com"