This seems to come up with enough regularity that it is worth writing down.

If you’re a Southerner, the instructions are easy:

1. Make a half gallon of sweet tea in a mason jar.
2. Slip in a scoby with a splash of dregs and cover with a handkerchief secured by a mason jar lid.
3. Wait a couple weeks

Didn’t grow up on sweet tea? No worries – detailed instructions are below:

1. Make sweet tea
   1. Put 2 cups BOILING WATER in a tempered mason jar
   2. Add 4 – 6 bags TEA (I use half black, half green)
   3. Wait 15 minutes
   4. Remove tea bags (don’t squeeze them out because it just makes things astringent)
   5. Add 0.5 cup SUGAR and stir to dissolve
   6. Top up with ~ 6 cups COLD WATER
   7. Sweet Tea temperature should be around 70 – 75 F.
2. Slip in a SCOBY
3. Splash in some of the dregs from the last batch of kombucha
4. Cover with a handkerchief and secure with a mason jar ring
5. Put the jar out of direct sunlight on the counter or in the pantry and wait a couple weeks.

When’s it done?

• A new scoby will form and float on top. Once you see a fairly good sized scoby, you’re done. Pour a bit once in a while if you’re curious. Honestly, we’ve let ours go until the mason jar was nearly half scoby and it was fine – just less sweet so either pinch your nose or cut it back with sugar or seltzer.

What’s a scoby?

• Think of it like a close knit community of friends who are so inseparable that they are literally knit together into a solid mass. The ‘friends’ here are actually a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast (s.c.o.b.y) and you’ll need a real-life friend to give you one to get started.