Apple and cinnamon kombucha

Apple and cinnamon are the flavours of autumn and winter: apple crumble after Sunday lunch, baked apples, the first Bramleys of the autumn. In kombucha the pairing works remarkably well. The apple juice brings sugar for the second fermentation, so you get a strong fizz, and the cinnamon stick adds a warm, sweet scent without making the drink heavy. What you pour is a golden, sparkling kombucha that is tart and yet smells of a warm apple tart. A good glass to bring out at Halloween, or next to the crumble on a cold Sunday.

Which apple juice?

Cloudy apple juice has more flavour than clear, and it gives the kombucha a soft haze. Choose a juice without added preservatives: they hold back the fermentation and the fizz stays away. Juice pressed from your own apples is ideal, if a tree in the garden is dropping more than you can use. Mix a sharp Bramley with sweeter eating apples such as Cox or Russet: Bramley juice on its own is very tart.

No juice? Grate half an apple, skin and all, into the bottle. The flavour is lighter, and you will definitely need to pour through a sieve.

The first fermentation

You start with ordinary kombucha: 1 SCOBY with 1 cup of starter liquid (about 250 ml), 80 g sugar, 3 tea bags (about 8 g loose tea) and 1 litre water, left for 7 to 10 days at 20 to 25°C. Taste it with a straw slipped down the side of the jar: it should still be faintly sweet and already clearly tart. The full method is in How to make kombucha, and the choice of tea in the best tea for kombucha. If you already drink a strong cuppa several times a day, you have the main ingredient in the cupboard.

Variations

• Apple and ginger: 10 g grated ginger with the apple juice. Warm and spicy.
• Apple pie: a cinnamon stick, a clove and a strip of lemon zest. Remove the clove after two days or it takes over.
• Apple and pear: half apple juice, half pear juice. Softer and more fragrant.
• Apple and blackberry: a handful of blackberries in the bottle. A deep pink colour; see the berry kombucha.
• Christmas: a cinnamon stick, a star anise and a strip of orange zest. Lovely with a slice of Christmas cake.

Serving and storing

Serve it cold in a wine glass with a thin slice of apple, or slightly chilled with a slice of the kefir apple cake, made with Bramleys and milk kefir. The same cloudy juice goes into the apple mule in the alcohol-free Moscow mule. Keep the opened bottle in the fridge and drink it within a week or so; take out the cinnamon stick if you keep it longer. Too sharp after a long fermentation? The guide kombucha too sour explains how to catch the next batch earlier.

Frequently asked questions

Start your own kombucha with a live kombucha SCOBY. All recipes and guides are on the kombucha page.