Workhorse or Benchmark variety

[Andrey_BY]

Quite a spectacular trip, Phreddy! Good luck with all intermediates!
What kind of tea are you going to have at home? Is it traditional English Breakfast (taste it if you arrive in the morning), Darjiiling (in the afternoon) or Orange Pekoe (in the evening)?

[phreddy]

We drink Red Bush or Rooibush from S.Africa. Not really tea at all. Does not have tannin or caffine.
That's a wide knowledge of tea you have Andrey

[Andrey_BY]

Rooibush is not so popular here.

I like diffeent sorts of tea, especially real Chinese green teas from upper leaf... My father is crazy about green tea even more than me. Real master of tea ceremony

[amideutch]

Andrey, what do you know about Tea-Kavass or Chayniy Grib?
For the rest that is Kombucha. Ami

[BigdaddyJ]

Big Beef. It never lets you down.

[Andrey_BY]

Originally Posted by amideutch

Andrey, what do you know about Tea-Kavass or Chayniy Grib?
For the rest that is Kombucha. Ami

Ami,
we used to prepair Chaynyi Grib (Tea Mushroom) drink in 1980s in USSR times and now rediscover this famous drink as well. This is a very healthy drink. And yes, you can call it Tea-Kvas as well

There is also Milk (or Kefir) Mushroom drink available here. Its body is very fast growing and you should add new milk every day

[cottonpicker]

Andrey.... Interesting that you should mention Milk Kefir. I used to grow & consume it until I got tired of the process & let the culture die. It IS a very healthful drink... like a milky yogurt. We can buy it here in a store named Whole Foods. This same culture which is a small clump of bacteria can also be used to make a carbonated drink from sugar water. Back in the 1930s & 1940s many rural poor people made their own soda pop with a form of it called "water kefir". My uncles & other relatives called the culture "Beer Seed" and it was also known as "California Bees" or "California Beer Seed". Back in the 1950s I got a starter of it from rural Mississippi. The natural form has pretty much died out I believe... I DO remember it was fun to watch it "work"...ferment. The little grains would rise & fall in the solution as they gave off CO2 gas & then fell to the bottom until the CO2 production (from fermenting tthe sugars) built up again----- like bees flying around in solution, hence the name.
LarryD

[amideutch]

Andrey, I have been curious about "Kefir" but havn't gotten around to making it. I have 3 Chayniy Grib cultures right now using Green tea, Pur-eh and Rooibus. I may start a 4th culture using Yerba Mate. Of course you have to use green tea in con★★★★★★★★ with the Rooibus and Yerba Mate as they are not true tea's. Ami

[Andrey_BY]

Ami, when I've been to Germany (4 years ago) I've bought some Mueller Kefir in Hartmannsdorf (near Kemnitz). It tasted like awful watery milk and was only a bit tart as it should be. So do make it yourself from this substance and this will be a good answer to the ad slogan: "Mueller oder was?"

Larry, even industrial made kefir in glass bottles costed quite cheap in USSR so many people used to make it from milk and these bacterias by themselves. We were all on the same a stabily poor level with our incomes as well as many Americans after financial crysis of 1920s...

[mayax68]

From time to time, I make my own Kefir by using starting ingredients from the store. I take organic low-fat not flavored yogurt (about a cup), mix it up with a cup of store bought buttermilk, add about 2 cups of regular milk, cover loosely and let it sit on the counter. Depending on the air temp it can take anywhere from 24 hours to couple of days to ripen. Once all the milk is consumed by lactic bacteria, your Kefir is done. You can use half of it and replenish the other half with fresh milk. You can probably use either buttermilk or yogurt, but I use both to try to get most variety of lactic bacteria.

[Andrey_BY]

Maya,
as you probably remember this your home-made drink is called a Prostokvasha not a Kefir