If you’re a lover of coffee you have to try coffee kombucha. Packed with probiotics and loaded with caffeine, this just might be your new morning wake me up. Excellent choice for beginner fermenters. If you have already mastered the skill to make a regular kombucha it’s time to bring it all to another level with this simple but interesting recipe. To refresh your knowledge on the basics of kombucha we have How To Make Kombucha – Basic Recipe.

Let’s start with coffee

For this recipe, you will make a 1/2 gallon batch but feel free to scale it up or down to any size you want. This is not something you drink every day so start small. To begin you need a healthy SCOBY. This is what gives life to the drink and creates fermentation. But before peeling off some of that SCOBY to build up, we first need to make some cold brew coffee as our base.

For the cold brew, you can use whatever brand or the type you want. Either store-bought cold brew or nice hand-picked coffee that you grind yourself. Either way, it will taste great. Coffee beans have a ton of varying flavors from fruity to chocolatey.

As for making the coffee, any method works as long as it adds up to about half a gallon to fill out our fermenter jar. For every half gallon of water, I usually add 50 grams of coffee. The better you strain your coffee the better the final product will be. Any leftover coffee grounds might react with the SCOBY. If you make hot coffee just make sure to cool it down before ( to at least below 90 degrees F or 32 degrees C) moving on to the next step.

Moving on to the kombucha part

Just like with a regular kombucha you need sugar. You can really go with any sugar source as long as it’s not a sugar-free alternative. The sugar is needed for the fermentation so you can’t really skip out on this. For the sugar, I used 50 grams for the whole batch.

Give it a good stir to mix everything in. And then place a napkin or a cloth on top with a rubber band. Don’t seal it with a normal lid. SCOBY needs oxygen to perform. The napkin gives a good amount of breathability without letting any bacteria or bugs in. With all that put together place it on the counter, out of direct sunlight for 3-5 days. It could take longer or shorter depending on how warm your room is.

Taking a small sample each day with a straw and tasting it for the overall acidity is extremely important. If you let it go for too long, you’ll have a super acidic coffee drink that is unbearable to get down. When the taste is to your liking it’s time to bottle it up.

Adding a little flavor or leaving it classic

If you want a little fizz and some additional flavor you can add some ingredients to create a second fermentation in the bottle. You can add more sugar that will kick up fermentation again creating CO2 and thus pressure in the bottle. This can be as easy as adding some more sugar. Half a teaspoon or 2 grams is a good starting point. You can also add vanilla extract or mint to give the coffee a little boost.

Please make sure to use fermentation-grade bottles so you don’t have any explosions. Once the bottles are filled set them on the counter for another 2-3 days until you see pressure on the lids. Then put them in the fridge to cool down. Once the bottles are cooled down this coffee kombucha is ready to drink. Cheers.