Using herbal teas

[HippieMama]

I have three batches of tea: black tea, green tea, and echinacea. So far the echinacea is the best of the three, but I have read that herbal teas are not supposed to be used and will not sustain a healthy scoby. Other sites suggest that some herbal teas work just fine! My main question is, could there be some danger in continuing to brew this tea or is it fine as long as the scoby looks healthy and it doesn't taste funky?

In what measurements would you add other herbal teas to the 2nd fermentation and do you sweeten this tea? Any suggestions for good combinations?

 

[kyt]

I have three batches of tea: black tea, green tea, and echinacea. So far the echinacea is the best of the three, but I have read that herbal teas are not supposed to be used and will not sustain a healthy scoby. Other sites suggest that some herbal teas work just fine! My main question is, could there be some danger in continuing to brew this tea or is it fine as long as the scoby looks healthy and it doesn't taste funky?

In what measurements would you add other herbal teas to the 2nd fermentation and do you sweeten this tea? Any suggestions for good combinations?

If it looks fine and tastes fine, assume it's fine.
It's said that you have to use C. Sinensis tea as the base for microbial health. Some herbs to do leave enough minerals and other materials for the microbes to be healthy; Since you're only supposed to use processed white sugar. If you were to use other sugars that could replace some of the minerals and materials the yeast and bacteria need to be healthy, you would have more wiggle room to try other teas. Classically, kombucha is white sugar and black tea, so if you use a different combination, you technically would have a different style.

For example, Jun is honey and green tea, which has resulted in a different microbial population over time, and is not the same thing as making kombucha with green tea and honey. They'll turn out different.

If you train your microbes for echinacea and sucanat (hypothetically), over time, you'll end up with a brew that is inherently different than traditional kombucha, even though you started out with kombucha starter. But it doesn't happen overnight.

If you take a kombucha starter and pitch it in a batch of beer wort, it's not kombucha anymore, you'll have a weird kind of lambic-y/Berliner Weisse kind of thing going on. If it didn't stress out and kill the yeasts that is.