Tej — Print Recipe — The Culinary Codex

A golden, effervescent honey wine fermented with gesho leaves, offering floral sweetness with a dry, slightly bitter finish.

Ingredients

1kg raw honey
4L water
100g gesho leaves or gesho powder
Additional honey for sweetness adjustment
Clean fermentation vessel with airlock

Instructions

1 Dissolve honey in water in a large clean vessel, stirring until completely incorporated and the liquid is uniform.
2 Add crushed gesho leaves to the honey water. Gesho acts as both bittering agent and natural fermentation starter.
3 Cover the vessel with cheesecloth and place in a warm spot. Stir daily for the first three days of fermentation.
4 After three to five days, wild yeast fermentation will begin. Small bubbles will appear on the surface consistently.
5 Strain out gesho leaves and transfer to a clean vessel. Continue fermenting for two to four weeks until desired strength.
6 Strain through fine cloth into bottles. Tej can be consumed young and sweet or aged for a drier, stronger result.

Did You Know?

Tej houses called tej bets are a cornerstone of Ethiopian social life, serving this ancient honey wine in distinctive round-bottomed flasks called bereles.