Why does the Kombucha Tea fermented for 14 days taste like vinegar?
Michael R. Roussin, Director of the Kombucha Consumers Research Group ™ replied: “The initial stage of the fermentation is to put glucose and fructose into solution. This is accomplished by splitting the sucrose. The glucose is quickly oxidized into a variety of acids and the fructose into a variety of alcohols. The residual fructose level, along with the balance of the gluconic acid over the acidic acid level gives the Kombucha its flavor. If you let it ferment until the acetic acid level is in excess of the gluconic acid level it will taste like vinegar. One the other hand, while the gluconic acid level exceeds the lactic acid level, the flavor of the fructose is predominant, and tastes like apple cider.
