Short answer: kombucha is made by fermenting sweet tea with a living culture called a SCOBY. Give it sugar, tea, warmth and time, keep everything clean, and the culture does the rest. Here is how that works, start to finish, and how it scales from a jar on the counter to a commercial batch.
The short version
Brew sweet tea. Add a SCOBY and a splash of starter liquid. Cover it, leave it somewhere warm for one to two weeks, and the culture turns sweet tea into something fizzy and tangy. That is the whole idea. Everything else is detail and cleanliness.
What you need to make kombucha
- Tea, black or green, brewed strong
- Sugar, the fuel for the ferment
- A SCOBY, the living culture
- Starter liquid, mature kombucha from a previous batch
- A clean glass vessel, a cloth cover and an elastic band
- Time, and a warm, steady spot out of direct sun
How kombucha is made, step by step
- Brew sweet tea. Steep the tea, stir in the sugar, and let it cool to room temperature. Hot tea would harm the culture.
- Add the SCOBY and starter. Pour the cooled tea into a clean jar, then add the SCOBY and a good splash of starter liquid. The starter raises the acidity so the good cultures win and nothing nasty moves in.
- Cover and wait. Cover with a tight-weave cloth so it can breathe but bugs cannot get in. Leave it somewhere warm, around 20 to 26 degrees C, for roughly 7 to 14 days.
- Taste it. It starts sweet and slowly turns tangy. When the balance is right for you, it is ready.
What is a SCOBY, and how do you feed it?
SCOBY stands for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast. It is a little team living together. The yeast eats the sugar and makes the fizz and a small amount of alcohol. The bacteria then turn that alcohol into the clean, tangy acids that give kombucha its bite. You feed it with what it wants, sweet tea. Sugar is not the enemy here, it is the food, and most of it gets eaten during the ferment. We wrote the honest sugar numbers here: how much sugar is in kombucha?
The second ferment: where the fizz comes from
This is the step people ask about most. After the first ferment, you bottle the kombucha, seal it, and leave it a few more days. Sealed up, the culture keeps working and the carbon dioxide has nowhere to go, so it dissolves into the drink. That is your natural fizz. Some brewers add fruit or flavouring at this stage. At Life Blood the flavour comes from hops instead, which is a story of its own: where the flavour comes from.
Cleanliness is the whole game
If there is one rule, this is it. Kombucha is a living ferment, and a living ferment will happily grow whatever you give it, good or bad. Clean, sanitised kit and acidic starter liquid keep the culture healthy and keep contamination out. Get sloppy and you can grow mould instead of kombucha.
A healthy SCOBY is pale, rubbery and a bit alien-looking, and brown stringy bits hanging off it are just normal yeast. Fuzzy spots, though, blue, green, black or white and dry like bread mould, mean the batch is done for. When in doubt, throw it out and start clean. Good kombucha is really just good hygiene plus patience.
How long does kombucha take to make?
The first ferment is usually 7 to 14 days, and the second is another 2 to 5. Warmer means faster, cooler means slower. There is no rushing it and no need to. The time is where the flavour and the balance come from, and it is the same slow ferment that keeps the alcohol in check.
How is kombucha made commercially?
Here is the reassuring part. A commercial kombucha is made the same way as a jar on your kitchen counter. Same biology, same SCOBY, same feeding, same patience. Nothing is faked and nothing is shortcut. What changes is scale and control.
Instead of a jar, you use larger food-grade vessels. Temperature is held steady rather than left to the weather. Sanitation moves from “clean enough” to a formal food-safety standard, because at volume, one contaminated batch is a lot to lose. And every batch is checked for consistency, so the can you buy tastes like the last one. That is really the only difference. A home brewer hopes for a good batch. A commercial brewer has to guarantee one, every single time.
Ours is brewed in Aberdeen. We run an extended ferment so the culture finishes the job, keep everything clean and consistent, and build the flavour with hops rather than fruit juice or syrups. Real tea, real fermentation, real hops. Less sugar, no artificial sweeteners, 39 calories a can.
The common-sense version
Kombucha is made by feeding a living culture sweet tea and giving it time, in a very clean space. Do that well and you get a bright, fizzy, tangy drink. Do it at scale with tighter control and you get a can of Life Blood. Same process, start to finish.
Some people call that health and wellness. We call it common sense.
Questions we actually get asked
How is kombucha made?
Sweet tea is fermented with a SCOBY, a living culture of bacteria and yeast, for one to two weeks, then often bottled for a short second ferment to build natural fizz.
What is a SCOBY?
A Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast. The yeast eats the sugar and makes the fizz, and the bacteria turn that into the tangy acids that give kombucha its flavour.
How long does kombucha take to ferment?
Usually 7 to 14 days for the first ferment, plus 2 to 5 days for a second ferment. Warmer temperatures speed it up.
Can you make kombucha at home?
Yes, with sweet tea, a SCOBY, starter liquid and clean kit. Cleanliness is the key, because a living ferment will grow whatever it is given, so everything must be sanitised.
Is commercial kombucha made the same way as homemade?
Yes. The biology is identical. Commercial brewing just adds bigger food-grade vessels, steady temperature, formal food-safety sanitation, and batch-to-batch testing for consistency.
Keep reading
What is kombucha?, is kombucha alcoholic?, and how much sugar is in kombucha? Or try our real kombucha for yourself.
