The availability of a lactose medium for tea fungus culture and Kombucha fermentation

Abstract

Kombucha is a traditional beverage that is prepared by fermenting sucrose-sweetened black tea. A medium is inoculated with a cellulose pellicle (popularly known as a “tea fungus”) or fermentation brought from previous cultivation process. Our aim was to test the possibility of obtaining a Kombucha beverage using different concentration of lactose as an alternative source of C-atoms. A traditional medium sweetened with sucrose or without sugar was used as control. Without lactose-fermenting yeast strains in tea fungus, lactose is not an adequate alternative source of the C-atom for Kombucha fermentation because it is not possible to obtain Kombucha with an appropriate acidity during a seven-day fermentation. Compared with the traditional medium, fermentation is significantly slower with high differences in acid content. In unsweetened tea inoculated with the beverage obtained from a previous traditional process, Kombucha fermentation processes and produces a beverage without sugar and alcohol. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. TR 31044]

Keywords

• Kombucha
• tea fungus
• lactose
• unsweetened tea