Highlights…

• Kombucha recipe
• Cork yoga mats on the way (pre-order special)
• What I’m reading at the moment
• School holiday schedule
• Final week for kids yoga
• Ideas for kids holiday activities
• Quote of the week

Kombucha Recipe

Lots of people have been asking me how to brew Kombucha.

My family and I drink quite a bit of it, and when you do what’s known as a second ferment, with squeezed lemon and fresh ginger, it tastes delicious.

The kids love it, and it makes a healthy, non-alcoholic substitute for wine.

Here’s how to make it…

Ingredients

• 1 Kombucha Scoby
• 3 or 4  tea bags or 4 teaspoons of eta (green, black, or rooibos)
• 3/4 of a cup of white sugar
• 2 litres of hot water
• 200 ml of kombucha from a previous batch as a starter. Or 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar if you don’t have any kombucha.

(Or 3 litres or water, 5 tea bags and 225g sugar)

• Optional ingredients, for second brew
• Freshly ground ginger
• Turmeric
• Lemon zest

Equipment

• Glass jar for first brew – I use a 5L jar with a tap on it
• Glass bottles – you can use brewers bottles or you can use wine bottles with screw top caps.

  Initially, you will want to sterialise them, but after that, I recommend you just rinse them with hot water, between re-uses.

What is a Scoby and Where to Get It
A Scoby is a symbiotic organism that looks like a tan coloured Jelly Fish.

It’s not pretty, but it is harmless (as long as you don’t eat it).

You’ll find a Scoby will grow and divide regularly, with the new Daughter plant forming on the top of your Kombucha jar, with the Mother towards the bottom.

In order to make space, you’ll often have to peel the daughter layer off, and discard it in your compost, or give it to a friend.

If you know someone who’s making Kombucha, just ask them for the Daughter layer, when they peel it off.

You can a Scoby in a glass jar, with a lid, and enough Kombucha to keep it covered. It can happily live dormant in the fridge, like this, for months.

Brew

• Take tea bags and brew in a pot of hot water, for 15 minutes.
• Strain to remove tea leaves (or remove tea bags)
• In another jug, stir sugar with approximately 1 cup of hot water, until sugar has dissolved, to make sugar water
• Combine the brewed tea, sugar water, and starter Kombucha tea, and top up with water to a total of 2 litres
• Add Scoby
• Now add the Scooby – I normally just pick it up with clean hands or tongs.
• It will probably float but sometimes it sinks. It will make no difference if it floats or sinks, so don’t worry about it. If the Scoby has a ‘dirty’ side where it’s darker in colour, and has beard like brown bits sticking to it, then put that side facing down into the tea. The brown bits are yeast.
• Add muslin cloth, to keep bugs from contaminating the mixture, and keep in place with elastic band
• Store out of direct sunlight, in a moderate temperature. I keep mine on a shelf in the Kitchen.
• Allow to brew, testing every few days
• When most of the sweetness has gone, but it hasn’t yet begun to taste sour, it’s ready to be bottled

First Ferment

• The fermentation will take 5-14 days depending on the temperature and the vitality of your Scoby
• If you check your brew after 2 or 3 days, you’ll notice a scum forming on the surface. It’s not scum at all; it’s the first thin membrane of your new Daughter Kombucha.
• Start tasting the brew after 4 or 5 days.
• Gently move the scoby aside and dip a spoon into the liquid.
• When the kombucha is ready it should be neither too sweet nor too sour.
• This is rather a personal taste and will depend on how much sugar you want left in the brew. Some like it sweet ,but others prefer it sour. It’s up to you, so test it every day until its the way you like it.

Bottling & Second Ferment

• When the kombucha is ready, with clean hands gently lift the mother culture and it’s offspring onto a clean plate.
• Strain the kombucha into your measuring jug leaving behind about 200ml in the bowl, as a starter for the next batch.
• Now, fill your clean bottles with the kombucha, and add flavouring if you like. I use grated ginger, turmeric, and lemon zest, with a little bit of honey.
• Label them and store them in a cupboard.
• After bottling your kombucha make up a second batch of tea for the culture and set your second brew to ferment.
• Kombucha is ready to drink immediately, but storing the bottled kombucha for a while will help it to get fizzy.
• The kombucha will often grow little scobys on the top of the liquid in the bottles. This is perfectly normal and nothing to worry about, but look out for them when you take your first mouthful!

Need a Scoby?
Either me, or one of the other Kombucha enthusiasts, at the studio, will have a spare Scoby we can give you.

Just give me a bell.

Cork Yoga Mats Are On Their Way (Pre-Order Special)

Our first shipment is due to arrive at the end of October.

These will retail at $95 per mat. However, if you pre-order now, you can get your mat for just $60 ($35 off).

==> Pre-order your cork yoga mat, and receive $35-off, here

What I’m Reading at the Moment

This is a riveting and interesting story about the network of women spies, during World War II.

It’s a great read!

School Holiday schedule

I’m looking at taking a couple of days off, during the holidays.

Weather permitting, I’ll probably go on mini road trip with my family, in the campervan 🙂

I’ll let you know in the next few days, which classes are running.

Final Week for Kids Yoga

This is the final week of kids yoga.

Thanks to all the parents who supported Kids Yoga, this term.

It was an interesting experiment. We’ve concluded, in order to make kids yoga work properly, we need to run two separate classes – one for younger kids and one for older kids.

However, we don’t have the resource to do that, at the moment.

So, we won’t be running Kids Yoga next term.

Ideas for Kids Holiday Activities

I’ve been looking around for ideas for stimulating activities, for my kids, during the next school holidays.

Many of you have kids, or grand kids, so I thought this info might be useful. Here are some of the more interesting events:

• Pauatahanui School Lamb & Calf Day (look out for Rachel Ireland and her pet lambs!)
• Scene of crime workshop
• Weta holiday workshop (Isaac did one of these last holidays, and loved it!)
• Kids theatre puppet shows & workshop
• Craig Smith Wonky Donkey show

If you see other interesting ones, feel free to share them in the comments section on the blog page.

Quote of the Week

A year from now you may wish you had started today

~ Karen Lamb

If  you have any questions, please drop them in the comments, on this page (or reply to this email).

Otherwise, have a beautiful week ahead 🙂

Cheers,
Lauren McKee

P.S. – Invite your friends for a Free Week of Yoga, and receive some cool rewards yogacollective.nz/rewards

The post Yoga Collective Newsletter#4 appeared first on Yoga Collective Paremata.

Highlights…

• Introducing our new yoga teachers
• Cold & Flu tonic recipe
• Get audio & ebooks for FREE
• Timetable changes
• Membership price increase
• Thought for the Week

Introducing Our New Yoga Teachers

It’s been exciting to see Yoga Collective grow & evolve over the past year.

We now offer 11 yoga classes, with different styles. And, we’ll be adding more, in the next few months.

To help sustain the workload, I’m bringing in talented yoga teachers to teach some of the classes.

Stana Billot
Stana is a lovely and well trained yoga instructor. Her style of teaching is very similar to my own.

She will be teaching Thursday nights: 6:15pm Calm & 7:30pm Revitalise classes.

Abbe Holmes
Abbe and I did our teacher training together. She has a very similar philosophy to my own – gentle movements, where nothing is forced, teaching the body to self-heal.

Abbe will be teaching the Chair Yoga class, on Mondays, at 11am.

Julia Watkin
Julia is trained in Mindfulness, and is teaching Mindfulness & Yoga at Ngatitoa School.

She is very calm and patient, and a PERFECT kids yoga teacher!

Julia teaches Kids Yoga, every Tuesday at 3:30pm.

When you meet these lovely ladies, please give them a warm welcome 🙂

Cold & Flu Tonic Recipe

Last week, I felt the onset of a dreaded cold.

My throat was sore, voice ‘croaky’, along with other symptoms.

Knowing that I had to teach the next day, I seriously didn’t want to be laid low – especially after losing my voice for an entire week, this time last year!

So, I got the idea for the following recipe, from my Mother-in-law:

By the next day, my cold was almost completely gone.

And, although the garlic smell was pretty strong, it actually tasted quite pleasant.

So, if you feel a cold coming on, try drinking a small cup of this tonic, every couple of hours. Aim to get through the entire jug, by the end of your day.

Add the following to a jug:

• 1/2 cup of lemon juice
• 1/4 cup of honey (if you can get it, Manuka Honey is best)
• 1 to 2 Tbsp of freshly grated ginger
• 3 or 4 cloves of diced garlic
• 3 cups of boiling water

Finally, you can either:

1. Stir until the honey dissolves, allowiing everything to steep. Then, pour the mixture through a strainer. Or,
2. Process the mixture in a kitchen whizz, for a few seconds, to break up the bits of garlic and ginger.

Let me know how this works for you.

Listen to Awesome Audio Books (& Get eBooks) for FREE

If you’re anything like me, with lots going on in your life, it can be difficult to find enough time to read books.

But, since discovering audio books at the public library, I can listen to books whenever and wherever I am..

I listen to novels, do ongoing research for yoga & wellness, and even get stories for my kids to listen to as they doze off to sleep at night..

The best part is you can do this for FREE.

All you need is a local library card and a smart phone (or tablet), to play the audio books.

Here’s instructions for accessing your local library’s audio book collection, via an application called Libby.

I’m really grateful for this amazing service, and I hope you get good use from it too.

Yoga Class Timetable Changes

We recently added Chair Yoga, on Mondays, at 11am.

I’m also replacing Beginners Yoga, on Tuesdays at 6:15pm, with Chair Yoga.

Chair Yoga is not just for those with mobility issues, either – it’s also good for anyone who wants a gentle, yet effective workout, using the support of a chair.

Finally, I’m changing the name of Energise Yoga to Revitalise Yoga.

Note: ALL classes are suitable for all levels, including beginners.

Here’s the latest timetable, effective from Monday next week:

Membership Price Increase (for New Members)

When I first introduced the membership, $87 was the introductory offer.

Now that we’ve added several more classes, it’s time to increase the price to $100 per month – which is still great, because you only need to come to a little over 5 classes each month, to get real value.

Note – those of you who are already members will stay on the current rate.

If you’re thinking about the membership, you have until next Monday, 3rd of September, to lock in the old price of $87, before if goes up.

Thought for the Week

“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on”

– Havelock Ellis

Have an beautiful week ahead.

Cheers,
Lauren

P.S. – Invite your friends for a Free Week of Yoga, and receive some cool rewards yogacollective.nz/rewards 

The post Yoga Collective Newsletter #2 appeared first on Yoga Collective Paremata.

The kids seemed to really enjoy the classes.

https://yogacollective.nz/kids-yoga/

And that’s great because regular practice leads to increased focus, creativity, resilience, compassion, and a healthy self-image.It also decreases anxiety & negative behaviours.

From the responses received, we’ve decided to begin with just one class for 5 to 8 year olds.

Running Tuesdays 3:30 to 4:15pm, Starts 31 July, $108 for term 3.

Spaces are limited.

Book now to reserve space for your child.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below 🙂

https://yogacollective.nz/kids-yoga/

The post 🧘Kids Yoga Classes ✨ kicking off next week appeared first on Yoga Collective Paremata.

I’m excited to offer these free kids yoga classes, during the school holidays 🙂

We’re putting on two classes next Wednesday:
#1 – Ages 4 to 7 years – 11:00am to 11:30am
#2 – Ages 8 and older – 11:45am to 12:30pm

To register your kids for the free week, go to https://yogacollective.nz/kids-yoga/

The post Free Kids Yoga Class appeared first on Yoga Collective Paremata.