Jun and plant sodas: homemade recipes
If you already know kombucha, two close cousins are worth a try: jun (the "champagne of kombuchas") and fermented plant sodas (elderflower, flowers, herbs). Same living-fermentation principle, more delicate results. Here's how to make them.
What is jun?
Jun is a cousin of kombucha. The difference comes down to two ingredients:
- Green tea instead of black tea.
- Honey instead of white sugar.
Its culture (the jun SCOBY — the pancake of bacteria and yeast) is adapted to honey and green tea. The result is lighter, more floral, and less acidic than a classic kombucha, with finer bubbles. That's what earns it the nickname.
Jun vs kombucha: the real differences
| Kombucha | Jun | |
|---|---|---|
| Tea | Black | Green |
| Sugar | White sugar | Honey |
| Temperature | 22-26 °C | Cooler, 20-23 °C |
| F1 length | 7-10 days | Shorter, 3-6 days |
| Taste | Bright, bold | Soft, floral |
Key point: jun ferments faster and cooler. Don't let it sit like a kombucha, or it turns sour sooner than you'd expect.
The jun recipe (for 1 litre)
F1:
- 1 litre water
- 60 to 80 g honey (raw honey ideally, but not boiling: add it off the heat)
- 2 green tea bags (or 1 tbsp loose)
- 100 ml starter (jun from a previous batch) + 1 jun SCOBY
Brew the green tea at 70-80 °C, not boiling (boiling water makes green tea bitter) for 2-3 min. Remove the tea, dissolve the honey once the water is warm, let it cool below 30 °C, pour into the jar, add starter and SCOBY. Cover with a cloth. Leave 3 to 6 days at 20-23 °C. Taste from day 3: stop when it's lightly tart but still sweet.
F2: Bottle in swing-top bottles with a little juice or fruit, 1 to 2 days at room temperature, then fridge. Jun's F2 is quick — watch the pressure like a kombucha (tester bottle, burping).
Fermented plant sodas (elderflower and friends)
Same logic, no SCOBY: you use a ginger bug or water kefir as the starter to ferment a sweetened plant infusion.
Elderflower soda (for 1 litre):
- 1 litre water
- 70 g sugar
- 4 to 6 fresh elderflower heads (well shaken, no insects) — note: only black elder, never dwarf elder, which is toxic
- juice of half a lemon
- 100 ml strained ginger bug (or active water kefir)
Make a light syrup (water + sugar), let it cool, add the flowers, lemon, and starter. F1: 2-3 days at 20-25 °C under a cloth. Strain the flowers, bottle, F2: 1-2 days, then fridge. You get a floral, fizzy, very low-alcohol soda.
You can adapt the same method with hibiscus, mint, rosemary, or ginger-lemon: sweet infusion + starter + F1 + F2.
What these drinks share: short windows
Jun and plant sodas ferment fast — often just 2 to 6 days of F1, at specific temperatures. The sweet spot passes even quicker than with a classic kombucha, and every plant has its own timing. With several experiments running side by side, it's hard to remember which one was started when, and which one was best.
Keep a record of every experiment
That's where FermPal earns its keep: you create one recipe per drink (jun, elderflower soda, hibiscus…), every batch moves phase by phase with its durations and temperatures, and the version history remembers the experiment that came out perfect. No more "how many days was the elderflower again?" — you find the winning setup again every season.
Track my ferments with FermPal (free) →
Go further: the complete water kefir guide (grains, F1, F2) and the fermentation tracker app.