How to create delicious, fizzy, personalized Kombucha with fruits, herbs, spices, and juices.
Learning how to flavor Kombucha is one of the most exciting parts of homebrewing. It’s where creativity meets fermentation magic.
In this guide, you’ll learn exactly when to add flavors, how much to use, and how to create consistent carbonation every time. Plus, we’ll share a few of our favorite recipes to get you started!
Whether you love fruity, floral, spicy, or herbal booch, this page gives you everything you need to become a Kombucha flavoring expert.
Second Fermentation is the step where your finished First Fermentation (F1) Kombucha becomes sparkling, flavorful, and effervescent.
Think of F1 as making a base tea, and F2 as turning it into your signature beverage. (Later in this article, we’ll also explore Third Fermentation (F3) and discuss when it might be appropriate to add this extra step.)
You should always add flavors after removing the SCOBY and starter liquid. These should be kept only in liquids containing tea and purified water. This protects the culture and keeps your SCOBY Hotel clean.
You can flavor Kombucha using virtually anything aromatic or edible. Keep in mind that the higher the sugar content of your flavoring medium, the more effervescence will develop. This means you will need to take extra care to burp your bottles daily to avoid explosions or geysers (Click here to check out our guide on “Bottle Bombs”).
These are the most popular categories:
Fruits add sugar, sugar fuels fizz, fizz makes happy brewers.
Examples:
Use fresh, frozen, or dried fruit. Frozen fruit releases flavor fast.
Pro Tip: The smaller the pieces of fruit you use, the more flavor will get into your Kombucha. If you prefer more lightly flavored sips, be sure to use bigger pieces of fruit. If you LOVE intense flavor, you’ll want to possibly even muddle your fruit before adding it to the bottles.
One of the easiest ways to flavor Kombucha due to quick accessibility and consistent quality of the flavoring medium. This is a great way for beginners to get started in lieu of purchasing fresh fruits! Look for 100% fruit juice without preservatives.
Try:
Use 1–2 oz per 16 oz bottle. More sugar = more effervescence so tend to your bottles carefully as they ferment to avoid geysers and big messes!
Herbs help balance sweetness and add complexity. They can also be added to boost certain health benefits… studies show that the fermentation process can even enhance the efficacy of some plant compounds! (Ref: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11381286/)
Favorites include:
Fresh ginger is a natural carbonation booster. You can even use a combination of candied, dried, and fresh ginger to create an intensely gingery, stomach-friendly, gut-friendly functional beverage! (An absolute favorite!)
Perfect for fall or cozy blends, these polyphenol-rich powerhouses will quickly overpower the flavor of your brew so be sure to start with small amounts for best results!
Some Favorites:
Always leave ½–1 inch of headspace.
Flavoring = extra sugar. Extra sugar = more fizz. To guarantee great carbonation:
Follow our recipe here: How to Make Kombucha
Place into a bowl or your SCOBY Hotel.
Add fruit, juice, herbs, spices, or extracts directly to clean bottles.
Leave ½–1 inch of headspace.
Let bottles ferment 1–5 days. Taste daily.
Once flavored and fizzy: refrigerate.
Keep flavoring in F2 only, and always watch your bottles. Geysers may look like fun on social media, but they’re not fun when you’re cleaning bits of fruit and a whole lotta Kombucha of your ceiling and out of your carpets, drapes, and pets!)
No — the SCOBY prefers plain tea. Flavor only during F2.
Kombucha never “spoils” but it may get too sour to enjoy. Also flavorings left in the bottle for a long time can negatively influence the flavor. But as long as you enjoy the taste and no mold appears, Kombucha can be stored at room temperature indefinitely.
Fruit accelerates carbonation — always burp bottles daily to release pressure.
Yes — use herbs, spices, or extracts. Fizz will be milder.
Swing-tops create the strongest carbonation and best flavor.
Yes you can flavor with literally anything that creates a beverage you enjoy. If you like it, try it!
Yes! They may or may not taste good, the Kombucha takes a lot of the nutrients out, but give them a try!
A little goes a long way. Start with a teaspoon or so per 16oz bottle and see if more or less creates the best flavor for you.
1-3 days is the average but you might let it go longer depending on carbonation and flavor.
If not paying attention, small explosions can occur with the bottles. This is more likely if there is too much flavoring used or it is very hot, such as in Summer. To prevent explosions, burp the bottles by opening the caps slightly during the flavoring process (aka “second fermentation”) and allowing carbonation to escape. For more tips, visit this post: Bottling Kombucha Tea, Jun, Water Kefir and Milk Kefir Safely
Perhaps my favorite Kombucha flavorings recipe was inspired by ginger ale: a little bit of dried ginger can be added to the Kombucha for an extra kick. Ginger also increases carbonation in the Kombucha. Lemons and berries are also great additions to Kombucha. Elderberries and Goji berries are two of my favorite berry flavorings for Kombucha. Add frozen berries during cooler months. Some other seasonal Kombucha flavorings you should consider trying are:
One of the most delicious ways I’ve discovered to flavor Kombucha is with champagne or wine for a fun spritzer during hot summer months.
For most people, the convenient way to flavor Kombucha is in the bottle. This is because you may only have a few bottles to flavor at a time. Also flavoring in each bottle allows you to create more variety, which many home brewers prefer. But there is another way to flavor Kombucha that might be the right fit for some people, and that’s flavoring in the brewing vessel or another vessel such as a gallon jar.
True Confession: This is our preferred way to flavor and bottle. We like flavor a large vessel, then strain the flavorings and then leave the brew in the bottle for 1-2 weeks until the carbonation has built up and the flavor is dry. So delicious!
However, we NEVER recommend adding flavorings to the brew with the SCOBY. That is not how to flavor Kombucha successfully! Instead, this process is done AFTER the SCOBY and starter liquid have been removed for the next batch. By taking out the SCOBYs and placing them in a Hotel or other vessel, and then taking starter liquid from the top of the brew, we have protected the ingredients for the next batch. Then you can then add whatever you want to the remaining Kombucha in the vessel.
Then either cover with the cloth again or use a hard lid if you have one. Give the brew another 1-3 days in the vessel to extract the flavor and then bottle. After bottling, the brewing vessel will need a cleaning with soap and water to remove any flavoring residue. Rinse very clean!
Note: If you are doing Kombucha Continuous Brew (vs Batch Brew), simply use the spigot to fill up a gallon jar or other vessel. Add the flavors and strain after 1-3 days.
Another advantage of this method is that you can strain the flavors from the Kombucha as you bottle. This is not a requirement because the low pH of the Kombucha will not allow any mold or other contamination to occur with the fruit/flower pieces. That said, removing the flavorings will maintain the flavor of the Kombucha in the bottle longer than leaving them in as eventually they will degrade and mix into the bottle, potentially causing off flavors. Normally we strain ours out to extend the life but it is more work.
Then the process of building that carbonation in the bottle, usually for about 1-3 days without flavors, we call Third Fermentation.
Kombucha is fun to brew, fun to drink and fun to flavor. Get creative!
Explore our Kombucha Flavoring Kits, Herbs, and Ingredients
Or start from scratch with our Kombucha Starter Kits
(Not sure if you want Batch Brew of Continuous Brew? Learn the difference here!)
family-owned
over 5,000 
100,000+ happy 
exceptional 
only fresh living 
lots of free articles, 
