Making Jun at Home

Jun, or Jun Kombucha is a different type of Kombucha. This one is made with honey instead of sugar, and (mostly) with green tea.

To find out more about Jun, please check out our "Jun Bärbucha Kombucha" blog entry from February, 2018 (by clicking here)

Jun is less popular than Kombucha, and for that reason there's less information available about it. We've been making it since 2016, and we've been selling Jun Scobies since 2017. That means 10 years of experience already.

In our "Kombucha & Jun in Europe" Facebook group we have detailed (pic-by-pic) instructions how to make it. They are located in Media ~ Albums (Jun 101 - Set Up, Jun 101 - Brewing and Jun 101- Bottling & Flavoring). Anyone can join this group - just answer one question, and agree to to group rules. Once you do it, your request will be accepted.. .

In this blog entry, we will clarify a few things about the ingredients needed to make Jun at home, the equipment, the basic recipe, and the brewing process..

Let's start with the ingredients.

Although, there are only four of them (tea, honey, water and Jun Scoby), all four are equally important.

Jun is traditionally made with green tea, but any white tea or lightly oxidized (green looking) Oolong can also be used. Jun culture will have problems with black teas, or highly oxidized Oolongs, and those should be avoided.

Good tea choices would include Jasmine, Kukicha, Kabusecha, Dragon Well (which we use), or even this beautiful Osmanthus-flavored green tea. Basically any green tea which tastes good when made for drinking.

And remember, to use loose teas of good quality. Stay away from bag teas as they contains tons of microplastics, and definitely stay away from those "pyramid" teas.

So, the better the tea will taste, the better your Jun will also taste.

To make a traditional Jun, raw (unprocessed) honey should be used.

Do not take for granted that all honey is raw honey. As a matter of fact, a lot of so called "honey" jars might not even contain real honey, as this is one of those foods which are faked the most.

Honey can also be heated to make it more shelf-stable, or filtered so extremely that it does not contain any beneficial elements.

And do not think that Organic (BIO) honey is any better. Although it might be. Organic does not mean that it is unprocessed and raw. Organic only means that some of the pesticides were not found in it. But even in those companies there is a practice of mixing different "honeys" from even three different countries (Cuba, Romania, and Ukraine) as can be seen on the picture below.

Those were some really busy bees, won't you say?

Raw honey is more expensive and harder to come by. But you should look specifically for it.

If you have a local beekeeper, that would be the best place to get your honey. Or search for it online. If you can find it, your Jun will have even more benefits when you drink it.

Will the Jun culture work with normal supermarket honey? Yes, it will. So, really the choice is yours.

One more thing to keep in mind. You should definitely avoid darker looking honeys (like buckwheat), as they are stronger in flavor and they will overpower the delicate flavor of the tea. So look for lighter looking and milder tasting honeys (like Linden flower).

When it comes to water, use the best water you can find. Tap water is usually not preferable, unless you have a filter. To find out even more about water, please check our blog entry titled "Kombucha 101 - Water" by clicking here.

And finally the Jun Scoby.

Many people "re-train" their Kombucha Scoby to work with honey. Is it possible? Yes, it is, although it might take a bit of effort. Our first "Jun" Scoby was of this type, and we used it throughout 2016..

But when we brought over the real Jun Scoby from the US in 2017, we tasted the difference, and the difference was quite significant. Jun made with real Jun culture is a lot lighter and more tasty. So, if you have a chance, get the real Jun culture (like ours).

And we are not talking only about the cellulose disc traditionally called Scoby , but also about the liquid that comes with it.

That liquid is also very important and it should have enough living yeasts so that the fermentation process can take place. Our Jun Scoby comes with enough starter for up to 5 liter jar..

The equipment needed for making Jun can be seen on the pic below.

You will need a glass jar (minimum 3 L), glass bottles with cork-screw, a funnel, a strainer, a whisk and a spoon. Additionally a pot to brew water for tea, and a thermometer to brew the tea at the recommended temperature. Alternatively, if you have an electric water kettle with temperature control, you can use that for water heating to the right temperature.

What is not pictured above, but it's also important, is the cover cloth for the jar. It should be made of a breathable material, like jersey.

You can see it on top of our retail Jun Scoby Hotel.

As far as the recipe goes, it is a bit more difficult to give the precise amounts, like it is in the case of Kombucha. And the problem lies with honey, as some honeys can be very sweet, and some other types are less sweet, all depending on the flower nectar which bees collect and transform into honey.

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We use 75 g of honey per liter and you can also start with that amount. If Jun turns out to be too sweet after the first fermentation, you can reduce that amount. If it's not sweet enough, you can use little more honey. Just remember that any increase of honey amount might result in the increase of alcohol in the final product. Unless, this is precisely what you want.

For green tea we recommend using about 5-6 g per liter.

To make Jun, you need to steep the green tea in hot water. Please check the recommended temperature for steeping as some teas require 55-60 degrees C, and some other teas are steeped at 80 degrees C.

If you're using raw honey, make sure that you cool down the steeped to lukewarm temperature before you mix in the honey. Otherwise, you will kill all the beneficial enzymes in the honey.

After mixing in the honey, you can add the Jun Scoby with the starter.

Once you set it up, and cover it, it will take only two to three days for the fermentation process to be complete.

And that's because honey contains simple sugars, and those can be broken down a lot faster than it is in the case of traditional sugar.

Below is our Jun after one day of fermentation. Already bubbly and looking good.

(we obviously removed the cloth to take this picture)

Once your Jun is bottled, you still need to let it go through the process of second fermentation.

Don' let that one go for too long as Jun is also known as Champagne Kombucha. So it's very bubbly, when made correctly.

When you use good tasting teas, you do not have to flavor your Jun in the second fermentation (F2). But if you decide to do so, keep in mind that adding any kind of sweet juice, fruits, etc, it will make your Jun even more explosive.

And remember to keep some of the unflavored Jun as a starter for your next batch. Usually 350-500 ml will be enough.

Comparing Jun and Kombucha, especially when they are made with exactly the same teas, Jun is always lighter and more bubbly. The organic acids are also milder in Jun.

When fresh Jun tends to have a sweet note of the honey, but since the fermentation process still goes on inside the bottles, that sweetness goes away with time and Jun becomes dry. Just like Champagne, and even more bubbly.

If you are looking for things like Jun Scoby, brewing jars, bottles, teas, etc. We have them all, and they are all available through our online store. But just remember that we only ship things throughout Germany, and for obvious reasons we do not ship our Jun Kombucha.

This one is only available at our Kombucha Café in Berlin.

One last thing about our Jun Scobies.

From time to time we offer two variants: Class I (Klasse I) and Class II (Klasse II)

The only difference between them is visual, When you pick Class II Jun Scoby you will get a Scoby which is not perfectly flat, and it might be thicker in one spot and thinner in another.

Like the one below.

Those imperfection will not affect the vitality of the Scoby, nor will it affect the brewing process.

But it will save you some money.

First Class Scobies are uniform in size.

So, if you need one of those, please click on the button below.

Jun Scoby