More Kombucha Questions...

Well, I managed to transport a SCOBY all the way across the country in a glass pickle jar in my suitcase full of lipton's unsweetened i bought at walgreens. Not ideal conditions, but let me tell you, that baby has grown. I'm not living in an ideal kitchen right now, so I havent been making or consuming the tea on a regular basis, but I've allowed the SCOBY I started to sit in a 2-gallon glass jar with a dishtowel rubberbanded over the top under the sideboard in our dining room next to my mother's overfermented wine experiments. I left it alone for a little over a month and the tea is definitely more like vinegar at this point and the SCOBY is thick--maybe two or three inches and I can see the different pancake-like layers. In the last two days I've started drinking shots of the stuff in the mornings on an empty stomach with no ill effects. no real noticeable good effects either, but i could be cloaking them under caffeine and Sugar intake.

My questions: do you think it's okay to drink the liquid i've got? can it get too strong? can the scoby stop growing if there arent any nutrients left in the liquid? would it be better to divide and take out some of the scoby? start a new jar? anyone need some kombucha starter? It's mailable, right?

Also: when people talk about the miraculous nature of live apple cider vinegar, it sounds like it has many of the same properties as kombucha. Are they interchangeable on some leveL?

thanks a lot,
sj

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