With apologies to Jenny, who has been waiting for an answer!
Making kombucha is nice and simple. You can make it complicated if you want- but you don’t have to! I find it easiest these days (with an intrepid explorer under foot) to make things as simple as possible:
1. Make really strong, sweet black tea. That’s 1 cup of sugar and 5-7 tea bags to 1 gallon of water.
2. Put it in a glass (not metal or plastic) container and add 1 cup of kombucha plus the mother. Cover with a breathable cloth to prevent dust and fruit flies from getting in.
3. Let it sit at room temperature (away from vibrations such as the refrigerator) for about 7 days. I would start tasting it at 5 days and just let it ferment until you like the taste. The longer it goes, the more like vinegar it will be!
4. Pour into a pitcher all but one cup of kombucha. Save that cup for your next batch. Drink the rest. No need to mess with the mother, but if you want more than one batch going at a time, separate the new scoby from the old. Put baby with one batch and mama with the other.
5. Start over.
If you have the time and/or inclination:
-use good water that doesn’t have fluoride added
-use organic black tea (regular supposedly is contaminated with… fluoride!)
-double ferment for fun flavors and more carbonation: instead of pouring your finished kombucha into a pitcher, pour it into jars that you can close. Add a little fruit or juice to each jar and let the jars sit at room temperature for about another week. Add-ins I’ve used: raisins, grapefruit and peel, cranberries and juice, pomegranate syrup, strawberries, fruit tea, ginger, lemon juice, peach, and pineapple (which was horrible). I’ve heard of lots of others, too.
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Kombucha has a potent liver-detoxifying effect, so if you haven’t had it before, start slow! Drink an ounce or two a day, slowly increasing the amount until you’re having as much as you like. If you’re pregnant, now is not the best time to start drinking kombucha. If you’re already drinking it when you conceive, you should be fine to keep on drinking. (note that I’m not a doctor; yours may say otherwise!)
