I found an article on how to grow your own kombucha mother from a store-bought drinkand decided to try it myself. It was a long shot. The first 4 days were intense. I'd check on my jar 2-3 times a day to see if any fuzzy mold had formed, but none did.

Instead, from day 2, I saw a film begin to form on the surface of my tea. This would grow thicker and larger each day until it formed an ugly blob. My mother was born.

Last night, my SCOBY got to 1/8" thick and, according to the article, ready for another feed. Before topping up the jar with more sweet tea, I poured out half of the original liquid and had a sip.

After just 9 days, we went from having bottle dregs to something that definitely tastes like kombucha. :) It's been more than 12 hours since, and I've not been sick yet. Can't say for sure until the SCOBY is ½" thick and producing regularly, but looks like we're doing all right so far.

You'll hear that mother grown from bottled drinks might not make strong children, but our SCOBY went on to produce many children that fermented delicious tasting kombucha. Our mother originally came from a local brand called rok, who sound like they don't do anything to compromise the quality of their bottled contents.

This makes me all the more enthused about buying from them now that we're not currently brewing our own due to time and space constraints.