Bring 2 cups of water to a boil.
Place 6 black tea bags in a small pot. Pour water over tea bags. Steep for 10 minutes before removing them. Do not squeeze the tea bags before removing, this will make the tea bitter.
Add 1 cup of cane sugar to the pot of hot tea and stir until it has fully dissolved.
Fill the 1-gallon glass jar half way with clean filtered water. Add the hot sweet tea to the glass jar. It should be about 3/4 full now. The temperature should be between 75-85 degrees F before moving to the next step. Check with a thermometer. If you do not have one, the glass jar should feel like it is at room temperature, not “warm”. If it is warm, you may need to wait 30 minutes or so to let it cool to room temperature before going to the next step.
Add your scoby and 2 cups of kombucha (from the first phase, not the flavored one, the flavored one can ruin the scoby) to the glass jar. If you just bought a scoby kombucha starter the scoby will be in a pouch with kombucha already in it. Add that entire pouch to the tea and gently stir it. The scoby may sink or float, that is normal.
Secure the cheesecloth over the opening of the glass jar with a rubber band. Put a dated post-it note on the side of the jar so will know when it was started.
Carefully place in a room temperature/warm area between temperatures of 75-85 degrees F. Temperatures below 75 degrees will cause mold issues, the scoby will look bluish/greenish. Anything too hot, will kill the scoby.
Depending on temperatures, most kombucha will reach it’s peak between 7-21 days. If you are starting out, let it brew till day 7 before beginning the second phase of fermentation. As time goes on, you may like it less sweeter and that is achieved with a longer phase one fermentation.
