Anyone use alakozay black tea? Whats your favourite black tea?

[dye4me]

Ive been using alakozy black tea for about a year. Its very strong but i find it make a grew buch. About two months ago my wife quite drinking it saying that it had changed and was disgusting. I paid no mind as my buch and sweet tea still tasted right as rain. Until i opened a new box. the tea is way stronger and has a pronounced stale taste. I used a little more ginger and lemon and seem to have buried the taste but i think its time to find a new black tea. Has anyone else noticed changes in alakozay black tea? Anyone gt a black tea that they think is the best? Ive been using uncle lees organic at my office and it seems a lot more mild so I've gone from 8 bags/ gallon to 14 / gallon but have found it to be pleasant tasting.

 

[-DELETED-MEMBER-]

Hmmm, I've opened a new box of the alakozay tea in the last week or two and didn't notice any significant staleness. Alakozay isn't one of my favourite teas though. For quality specialty black tea I drink various loose teas from Murchies, which is a tea blender here in Canada. Otherwise my bread and butter black tea; I use it for 'bucha, chai, and just daily drinking; is Bee Brand Ceylon Pekoe. It comes in a one pound brick and costs about 7 bucks.

 

[Fire Me Boy!]

I'm ising English breakfast from Teavana.

 

[theDREWery]

I use the absolute cheapest black tea I can find. The scoby breaks down tannic acids to reproduce, so most of the tea character disappears during the fermentation, assuming you ferment till all sugars are gone. If I want tea flavor in my finished buch, I just cold steep some of the good stuff in the bottle overnight.

 

[zipper8650]

@theDREWery I have read that tea flavonoids and caffeine are the only two things unchanged during a kombucha ferment.

 

[theDREWery]

I couldn't tell you for sure, I've read so much conflicting info on kombucha, most of it without any scientific research or testing to support any claims made. The only things I could tell you for sure are that tannins get broken down, caffeine levels reduce (I've heard by half, but haven't seen any solid numbers), and sugars turn to ethanol to acetic acid.

 

[zipper8650]

Check out Michael Roussins lab tests

 

[theDREWery]

It looks like his website no longer exists, and the book is not available on Amazon. Did find a short interview with him that was interesting, but not very informative.

 

[Fire Me Boy!]

So are you all suggesting that using a "good" tea is a waste? I would think that a better tasting tea would yield a better tasting kombucha. But I'm a kombucha noob.

 

[theDREWery]

I've had the best sucess with adding tea flavor post fermentation, either by adding sweet tea or cold steeping tea directly in the buch. I think the majority of compounds we taste in tea are metabolized by the culture, with the exception of oil based flavors, which tend to go rancid rather quickly.

If you're ordering a special tea for flavoring, I'd say adding it as the base just seems wasteful, as the culture is just going to consume everything that makes it unique. Better to make a base kombucha, and add your flavor later.

This would let you get your tea by the ounce rather than the pound, and it won't hurt so much when you get a poor quality batch.

 

[-DELETED-MEMBER-]

We brew 'bucha in our household continuously with about a two week turn around per batch. There was a time where we shelled out for expensive teas for the base recipe. After many batches and varying economic situations I've come to the conclusion that expensive tea works best for the bottling blend while full bodied inexpensive tea works best for the base recipe. The flavour of the base recipe doesn't vary much based on the value of the tea used. The variety of tea makes a difference, though, to be sure.

Currently I use Bee Brand Flowery Pekoe for the base recipe. At about 7 bucks for a pound this tea is not only tasty but reasonable priced. For bottling we use a variety of expensive teas from various tea vendors found in our area. My favourite bottling tea right now is the hibiscus loose tea sold at Bulk Barn. The resulting Kombucha is just righteous.

 

[Fire Me Boy!]

We brew 'bucha in our household continuously with about a two week turn around per batch. There was a time where we shelled out for expensive teas for the base recipe. After many batches and varying economic situations I've come to the conclusion that expensive tea works best for the bottling blend while full bodied inexpensive tea works best for the base recipe. The flavour of the base recipe doesn't vary much based on the value of the tea used. The variety of tea makes a difference, though, to be sure.

Currently I use Bee Brand Flowery Pekoe for the base recipe. At about 7 bucks for a pound this tea is not only tasty but reasonable priced. For bottling we use a variety of expensive teas from various tea vendors found in our area. My favourite bottling tea right now is the hibiscus loose tea sold at Bulk Barn. The resulting Kombucha is just righteous.

Please educate me. What do you mean by the bolded part?

 

[-DELETED-MEMBER-]

@Fire Me Boy

When the initial fermentation is complete and I am ready to bottle the batch, I brew up a second tea of whatever tasty flavour I'd like to bottle with. Once the SCOBY is removed from the kombucha, with enough starter liquid for the next batch, I bottle the plain 'bucha with the fresh tea I've just steeped. For example, with the hibiscus rose tea I've been using lately I bottle two parts kombucha with one part hibiscus tea.

Plain kombucha is pretty tasty on it's own, but it can really turn into something special when mixed with other flavours at bottling time. Some people like to bottle 'bucha with fruit juice, (I've got a few bottles mixed with peach juice right now) but I really prefer to bottle with tea.

 

[user 204491]

I prefer the Newman's Organics Royal Tea for my kombucha. I do 3 gallon batches and use 15 of the black tea bags and 9 of the green tea bags. It tastes pretty good, is organic, and is reasonably priced.