**Sorry about the double-post. Steph and I were apparently thinking the same thing when we saw that NYT article. 
You may have noticed an interesting article in the online New York Times today about Kombucha, the fermented tea that we’ve been brewing and fermenting in-house here at The Linkery for almost two years now. We noticed it and chuckled a bit because Steph had coincidentally scheduled today to be the day to put it back on the menu, assuming it was ready for prime time.
Steph had originally brewed a 150 gallon batch in our large-scale fermentation tank just over a year ago, and we finally ran through that batch about a month ago. Similar to fermented sausages, it’s a little easier to work in smaller batches in order to tweak recipes and troubleshoot things that you might want to change for next time. That said, Steph’s been working with a series of 5 gallon batches that are on staggered start times, changing little things like initial sugar concentration, etc.
For those of you wondering what makes Kombucha different than your average tea, I’ll give you a quick Kombucha 101. We start with a sweetened black tea, to which we add a SCOBY (an acronym for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast). The yeast metabolizes the sugar, producing alcohol, and the bacteria then metabolizes the alcohol into acetic acid. What your left with is a refreshing, slightly carbonated, non-alcoholic drink that still maintains a fair amount of acidity. That means it goes great with food, unlike, say, sugary soft drinks. Come in and try a glass.
