Make kombucha at home — it's easier than it looks

Plain-language guides and honest gear picks for your first batch: starter kits, SCOBYs, bottles, and the know-how to keep every brew on track.

See the starter kitsHow brewing works
A jar of home-brewed kombucha

Why make it yourself?

Store-bought kombucha runs about $3–$5 a bottle. The home version costs pennies a glass once you own a jar and a SCOBY — and the SCOBY is the gift that keeps on giving: take care of it and it brews batch after batch, effectively for free, for years. All it asks for is sweet tea, a warm corner of your kitchen, and a little patience.

Kombucha is simply tea fermented by a living culture called a SCOBY (a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). You steep tea, stir in sugar, add the culture, cover the jar with cloth, and wait about a week. That really is most of it — which is why the beginner gear below is short.

The five things you actually need

  1. A SCOBY with starter tea — the living culture. Non-negotiable.
  2. A 1-gallon glass jar — glass only; the brew is acidic and picky about containers.
  3. Tea and cane sugar — plain black tea is the classic; the sugar feeds the culture, and most of it is consumed during fermentation.
  4. A breathable cloth cover — the brew needs air but not fruit flies.
  5. Bottles for the finished brew — swing-top glass bottles if you want fizz.

A starter kit bundles the first four (and sometimes all five). That is why most beginners start with a kit — and why our kit guide is the real front door of this site.

Start with the right kit

Urban Kitchen Organic Starter KitPurist pick

Urban Kitchen Organic Starter Kit

Typical price ~$50–70

USDA-certified organic SCOBY and starter liquid, a 1-gallon glass jar, temperature gauge, organic tea and cane sugar. The choice for people who want certified-organic ingredients from day one.

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Craft A Brew Kombucha Deluxe KitMost complete

Craft A Brew Kombucha Deluxe Kit

Typical price ~$60–80

Everything in a basic kit plus eight 16 oz reusable bottles, a stainless funnel and strainer, and pH test strips. If you want one box and no second shopping trip, this is it.

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Joshua Tree Kombucha Deluxe KitValue deluxe

Joshua Tree Kombucha Deluxe Kit

Typical price ~$45–65

Live SCOBY with a generous pour of starter tea, gallon jar, pH strips, temperature gauge, and six flip-top bottles. Deluxe contents at a mid-range price.

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New to all this?

Read How to Make Kombucha for the full first-batch walkthrough, and bookmark Is It Mold? — the page every new brewer needs in week one, when the jar starts looking strange and wonderful.