The tea mushroom is cultivated practically all over the world. It can easily adapt and adapt successfully to changing conditions. Relatively well withstand a wide range of temperatures, easily assimilates various sugars and nutrient media. Functions that are peculiar only to acetic acid bacteria and yeast fungi allow the transfer of unfavorable conditions and the exchange of substances due to internal reserves. If you have a tea mushroom at home, then remember that from now on he will be your friend, who has medicinal properties and who will come to the rescue. But in return you must know how to care for the tea mushroom.
Although fungus and viable, but requires certain conditions. First of all, the fungus needs oxygen, so the vessel, where the fungus lives, should be covered with gauze, and not with a lid. For a mushroom, a two-liter or three-liter jar is ideal, as it passes light well. However, it is better to put the jar into the shade, but not under the direct rays of the sun. It will take two containers: one for habitat of the fungus, the second one, for draining into it a ready-made drink.
First of all, gently separate the film from the mushroom and place the mushroom in another clean jar, fill it with warm water. Never pick up the mushrooms from the mushroom, it hurts the mushroom. The fungus can survive, but there is a possibility that it will hurt. With a tea mushroom should not be rude.
Layered daughter film, which is in a three-liter jar, is gently poured with warm water, covered with clean gauze. After that, the bank is put in a room at room temperature for a day. At this time, it is not recommended to put sugar or tea solution in a jar, as the mushroom only gets accustomed and gets sick. The bank should be covered with a piece of gauze so that the mushroom does not die, because an open mushroom is a good place for flies, on which they like to lay their eggs. If the laminated film of the fungus was on the bottom of the vessel, then you did everything right.
After 24 hours, the fungus can be placed in its habitual nutrient medium. Drink better to prepare as follows: first on boiled water we prepare 1% tea infusion and add sugar to it (at the rate of 1:10). We put the tea mushroom in the medium obtained. A mature mushroom is like a layered cake.
Remember, the infusion of tea fungus can be eaten whole only if you feed it daily and the acid concentration is very weak. But if the infusion of the fungus is strong, then it should be diluted in a ratio of 1: 2 (minimum). The stronger the drink, the greater the dilution ratio. The infusion has an easy-sour pleasant taste, does not irritate the oral mucosa, is not the initiator of strong tingling.
Surface of the nutrient medium after 2-3 days should be covered with a barely noticeable colorless soft film. Next in a few days on this film will appear convex white-gray colonies, having smooth edges. After which these colonies gradually merge into one large colony and form a thick leathery film. Growing, the film increases in thickness and after a couple of weeks can reach 10-12 mm.
Throughout the process of cultivation, the infusion will be transparent, and the film must be laminated (if to take care of the fungus correctly). After a while, the lower layer will begin to darken, acquiring a brownish-brown hue. Also, the strings will begin to hang, the bottom of the canal will be covered with a loose sediment with granular brown-brown colonies.
Approximately on the 7-10th day after the start of the process, you can taste the mushroom, drinking 2-3 glasses a day.
After the mushroom becomes multilayered (grows), it is neatly stratified, a separate layer is washed with cold boiled water, transplanted into another container, which contains a nutrient medium, the cultivation of the fungus continues. The tea fungus needs regular supplementation with a weak tea solution with 10% sugar content (to feed once every two to three days).
Also, approximately every 2-3 weeks the fungus needs a "bath bottom". To successfully carry out such a procedure it is necessary to carefully extract the mushroom from the infusion and carefully, but rinse it thoroughly in boiled water (the water must be cold). After the mushroom comes back to the infusion.