Jun Tea
Have you ever heard of Kombucha?!
What is Kombucha?
It’s basically a fizzy, fermented Flavored Concoction Cultured from black tea, sugar, and this crazy looking clump of bacteria known as a “scoby”. Sounds gross, but it’s actually really awesome! The health benefits this drink offers puts it in the “super food” category! Full of pro briotics that keep your gut bacteria in good balance! However, though this drink is sold widely in many health food stores, it is quite expensive and has a moderate sugar content due to an incomplete fermentation. When the manufacturer markets their kombucha, they cannot ferment out all the sugar otherwise they would have to label it “alcoholic”, thus being more limited as to where they could sell it. When home-brewing your own kombucha, it is much healthier and doesn’t have as much sugar as the store bought brands (depending on how long you ferment it), and it’s way cheaper (literally pennies a bottle)! Oh, and don’t be concerned about the alcohol content, it’s not high enough to have any kind of effect.
What is the difference between Kombucha and Jun tea?
Kombucha typically ferments off of white sugar and black tea whereas Jun does best with green tea and honey. both are very similar in makeup, however, Jun tea is much more delicate in flavor than kombucha. It doesn’t have to ferment as long so it doesn’t have quite the “bite” that kombucha has. You also don’t have to have such a warm environment to produce a successful batch of Jun. It ferments best in cooler climates (think, the Himalayan mountains where it first originated with Tibetan monks) making it a perfect project for the woman with a cooler kitchen who can’t get bread to rise without preheating her oven (*cough* me!). Jun is also higher in lactic acid than kombucha giving it higher ratings from metabolic performance!
How do you make home-brewed Jun tea?
First you have to start off with a healthy Jun skoby. They are relatively hard to find because Jun doesn’t produce “daughters” as predictably as kombucha, but we are happy to announce that we will be adding Jun skobies and Jun kits to our Etsy shop very soon! In the meantime you can order them here!
I make my Jun in 5 gallon buckets so this is a tutorial for a 5 gallon batch. You can half it or 4th it very easily if you like! Our Jun kits will be enough for 1 gallon batches and you will be able build your own culture family from there.
Your Jun skoby should come with a good amount (about ½ cup) of a starter “tea”. You’ll want to set your skoby and starter aside and complete the following steps first.
Take (4) 1 Gallon pitchers and add 2 Tbsp of organic loose leaf green tea to each. We get ours from Bulk Herb Store and we love it!
Next, fill your gallon pitchers with boiling water, and let your tea steep for at least 10 minutes.
Use a cheesecloth or an old t-shirt to strain your pitchers into a 5 gallon bucket.
Now add 4 cups of honey and stir. It's best to use Raw Local honey to get the best out of your Jun, but as long as it's 100% natural, that's good too!
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| This honey comes from Aldi and it's 100% pure clover honey, costs about $3 each and together makes about 4 cups! |
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| My little helper, Berea, stirring the honey into our Jun! |
You’ll want to wait until your tea has completely cooled before adding your skoby and starter. Otherwise, it will kill your skoby and all the beneficial bacteria in it!
Once your tea has cooled and you’ve added your skoby and starter, place a tea cloth (or that old t-shirt) over the top, and secure it with a rubber band. I like to double up my cloths and bands to secure it from fruit flies; that can be an absolute mess to deal with!
Let your fermenting Jun sit in a nice, quite, dark place (somewhere you would like to go for a while!) for 3-4 days. This is your first ferment.
After 3 days or so, your skoby should have made a baby! It’ll look like a milky white sheet floating at the top of your bucket.
Next is the second ferment. My husband and I appreciate a good quality beer every now and then, and we save up our bottles and caps specifically for our Jun! You can order bottles and caps online at Amazon or Ebay.
Decide which flavor to use for your Jun. Some of our favorites that will be included in our Jun kits are: Pink Drink (Raspberry, strawberry, & Hibiscus), Black Mango, and Ginger Zing (ginger, lemon, & lime).
*Very important! Remove your skoby(s) and at least ½ quart of starter before the next step. Do this for all your future batches of Jun yumminess!*
For your 5 gallon bucket you’ll make 1 gallon of tea flavoring. For this tutorial we’ll focus on just one flavor but you can make as many flavors in one batch as you want. Just takes some math skills!
Boil 1 gallon of water and add 10-20 tea bags (depending on how strong of a flavor you want...we like ours strong!) Remove from heat and let simmer until cooled. Remove tea bags and add to your bucket and mix well. If you are doing multiple flavors you’ll want to calculate 1 part flavor to 4 parts Jun.
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| This batch's flavors were Blueberry Pie and Black Mango! Yum! |
Now it’s time to fill your bottles! We love our beer bottles but you could also use soda bottles, flip top bottles, or glass jars! The object is to have an air tight lid.
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| There are many ways you could do this, we've found the easiest way to be to fill those 1 gallon pitchers with the 5 gallons of tea and funnel it into the bottles. |
Allow your second ferment to sit in the same peaceful, dark place for another 4-7 days. Remember, the longer they sit, the better! We usually start cracking our's open by day 4 or 5 (We’re not very patient when it comes to Jun tea)!
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| We keep our fermenting Jun in our laundry room. Out of the way, dark and quite, where it can bubble in peace! |
Our family loves this drink, and for those THM’s out there, this drink is on plan! Happy, healthy, and a great alternative to sodas, we hope you love this amazing drink as much as we do! Feel free to comment with any questions you might have, and tell us about your successes and failures with fermented drinks!
Happy brewing!
*To read more about Jun Tea and where it came from click here!
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