Placenta Tea?

A long time ago, my mother was telling me about a cousin of mine who was a bit of a hippie. One of the stories she told me about this person I had never met, was that she had a party with her friends where they ate the placenta from her recently born baby. Not really an unheard of practice, but certainly something to ponder.

Eventually I met this cousin and spent a few days with her, her husband and her son. I quickly came to the conclusion that my mother's story had just been an exaggeration borne out of inter-familial Southern gossip.

This cousin moved to Portland, found it agreeable, and told me I should consider moving as well. A couple years later, I acted on her advice and I've been living in the best city on Earth ever since.

Shortly after my arrival in Portland, I was looking through her refrigerator and saw a large jar with cloth covering the mouth. What was inside? It certainly looked like it could be amniotic fluid, and that thing floating in it was close to what I imagined a placenta to look like. Also, my cousin had given birth to a baby girl fairly recently. Were the rumors true? My wife and I were perplexed. I mean, you can't exactly say to someone, "So, is that a placenta in your fridge?"

We said nothing, and the mystery continued for a short while. One possibility I had in mind was that it might be the "Russian tea mushroom" that someone had told me about a couple years ago, but for some reason that seemed unlikely to me. After all, we were nowhere near Russia.

Of course, this ended up being exactly what it was (much to my relief). The mystery was solved one day when my cousin offered some of the liquid to us and explained what it was.

Most people refer to it as "Kombucha," although this is actually a misuse of a Japanese word for a type of kelp tea. The "placenta" part is known as a scoby, an acronym for "symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast," which is exactly what it is.

The process is not unlike brewing beer (an analogy that helps to get over the "gross factor"). The scoby sits in a large container of sweetened tea and processes the sugar. The product is slightly carbonated, and best described as a sparkling tea with a hint of apple cider vinegar. My wife and I had been drinking a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in water for a few months for its supposed health benefits, so it was an easy transition.

The alleged health benefits of Kombucha are numerous, although the only scientific evidence I could find was in the Wikipedia article on Kombucha, which states that it acts by enhancing the detoxification efficiency of the liver. However, Kombucha enthusiasts claim many more benefits, including increased energy. Read that Wikipedia article for more history and such.

There are several commercial brands of Kombucha tea, including Kombucha Wonder Drink, which is made right here in Portland. They ain't cheap, though, so it's best to just brew your own.

Step one: Obtain a scoby and some Kombucha tea. Some of our friends have grown their own by letting the commercially produced stuff sit in a jar until the scoby forms, but when we tried this it did not work. Fortunately, you can buy a scoby on eBay (natch) for a small price. You will need about a cup of already-processed Kombucha tea because it keeps mold from forming.

Step two: Brew up a gallon of sweet tea with a one and a half cups sugar. Make sure you boil the water for 5 minutes or so to eliminate chlorine. Use green or black tea. Do not use herbal teas. Do not use any metal utensils. Do not keep the tea in anything except glass or cereamic containers. If you do, your mogwai will turn into a gremlin and you will be screwed. (Note: It's ok to boil the water in metal.)

Step three: After the tea has cooled to room temperature (this takes forever), add the scoby and the cup of Kombucha tea. Cover the mouth of the jar with a paper towel or some cheese cloth.

Step four: Place the container in an area out of direct sunlight (does not have to be completely dark), where it will be at a comfortable temperature. It wants pretty much the same temperature of air that you do.

Step five: Wait a week. The scoby will be doing its thing. If fuzzy mold forms, then you will have to start all over again. The scoby will grow and become more dense.

Step six: Bottle most of the Kombucha tea, keeping enough to start the next batch. Leave some room in the bottles or jars because the tea will continue fermenting and carbonating. Refrigerate the bottled tea.

That's pretty much it. You will just use the new starter tea and your scoby to repeat the process. The scoby "mother" will make new "babies" that you can give to your friends or use to increase your output. Eventually you will need to replace the mother with one of the babies because they "die".

Here is a picture of our scoby at the start of its second batch of tea:

And here it is a week later:

So there you have it. It is quite a tasty beverage, and if you believe thousands of years of rumors, it might also be very healthy for you.