Thanks a ton for reading and watching :) To answer your last question first, no, i didn't color it. if you are referring to the brown piece of dried scoby, i forgot to wash it before drying it because i was in a rush. My best guess is that it has to do with the tannin's in the kombucha, but i'm not totally sure. In the future, i will try to deliberately dye it, which should be possible to do before the drying process (maybe also after).
I'm thinking about using some of the methods that people used for dying eggs around easter, since a lot of them are quite natural. The normal color seems to be a pasty, opaque sort of white.
About your question concerning smell, as of now, it does smell, unfortunately. The unwashed one obviously smells a lot stronger than the cleaned ones, but the smell is still there.
It smells of vinegar, and people seems to be having different tolerances towards the smell.
The next time i'm washing the scobies for drying, i will experiment more with different cleaning solutions. I will try using baking powder for once, as it seems to be an old remedy to remove the smell of vinegar. In order for the "leather" to succeed, it can't be off putting to people, and being smelly is definitely part of that :)
Thanks for commenting, i hope you're having a great day
I think you would be able to colour the scoby with fruit. I've noticed when I've made kombucha and have added fruit to flavour the batch, the scoby seems to absorb the colour.
The vinegar smell may be a challenge...your project is interesting. Well done!