Yebunna T'ej (Coffee-Flavored Honey Wine), part IV

Today was a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of day.  I needed to make coffee, and I needed to move onto the next step with the t'ej, which included adding the coffee!  


Yesterday, I had strained the t'ej mixture, then returned it to its place on top of the stove, covered.  Approximately 24 hours later, it was looking a little less green/muddy than it had yesterday:

Today's first step was roasting the coffee, which is covered in the prior blog post.  I should have purchased two pounds of green coffee beans, because I needed an entire pound for the t'ej alone.  And because I really wanted to brew what I roasted, I needed to use a cup of the beans originally intended for the t'ej.  To make up for it, I pulled out some coffee beans that were purchased in Addis Ababa.  This coffee comes from the Sidama region, the region where the girls were born.  

I'm glad I only needed a little bit of it, because it looked so inadequate next to my home-roasted stuff:

(the dark stuff is mine; the lighter stuff is the coffee we bought in Addis)

I never realized how much coffee beans expand after they're roasted.  The pound of green beans I received was in a little rectangular pouch not much larger than two Pop-Tart wrappers side by side.  The volume of those beans roasted filled a colander.  Ground, there was simply a TON of it!

The challenge today was how I was going to get cheesecloth-ensconced coffee grounds into a giant carboy with a neck that was approximately only an inch in diameter.  I started with the idea of making a sort of coffee-ground/cheesecloth string of sausages, but there were just way too many grounds and it quickly became clear that I wasn't going to be able to get the "sausages" narrow enough to fit into the neck.  

So, I went with my husband's idea of making a sort of pouch with the cheesecloth, poking it down through the neck, and adding the coffee grounds through a funnel.  

I quickly discarded the funnel because it wasn't very large (yet it was the largest I had) and the bottom was narrow enough that it got clogged quite quickly.  Plus, the grounds just weren't flowing smoothly through the cheesecloth-lined neck.  I ended up tediously spooning the grounds into the neck with one of the girls' old baby spoons.  Every few spoonfuls, I'd need to loosen the cheesecloth, shake it to settle the grounds, and release a bit more cheesecloth into the bottle to make more room for more grounds.  To reduce the risk of grounds seepage, I originally doubled the cheesecloth, which actually made it even more difficult to get the grounds in.  About halfway to three-quarters of the way through, I lost control over an edge of the cheesecloth and grounds started leaking out.  At this point, I tied it the best I could, realizing that it was going to be inevitable that the grounds would be leaking out.  I'll just have to filter the t'ej again later on.  

Because I hadn't gotten all of the coffee grounds into the carboy, I grabbed another piece of cheesecloth, except I kept it to one ply and it was still damp from being rinsed out yesterday.  This made a huge difference; while it was still slow going, it went much more quickly than it did before, and I was able to tie the cheesecloth so that there would be no leakage at all from at least that group of grounds.  

After getting all of the grounds into the carboy (I have no idea how I'm going to get them OUT again....I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it), I added the t'ej.  It is actually starting to take on a nice honey color.  

the cheesecloth-covered grounds floating in the t'ej

A notation in the recipe mentioned adding some brewed coffee to impart some coffee color to the brew, so I took some of the coffee I had made in the previous post and poured it on in.  It didn't give me any idea of how much to put it, so I just poured it in until I thought it looked good. 

with some brewed coffee added

Then, it was just a matter of adding a water lock (recommended by the dude at the home brewing supply store) on the top:

Now it gets to sit for 20 days!  And though I mentioned yesterday that today's step would be the final one, I discovered that I missed one additional 2-3-day step, so this is the penultimate step.  

If anyone is at all interested in having a taste in 3 to 4 weeks, please feel free to e-mail me with your address and I'll be happy to send you a small sample!  That offer stands for anything I make, as long as it's something that can tolerate shipping.

Yebunna T'ej (Coffee-Flavored Honey Wine), part III

This week's recipe, Samma We't ("Spinach Like Plant Sauce 'Nettle'" -- that subtitle needed to be placed in quotes, as that is exactly what it says in the cookbook) will need to wait.  The good news is that, believe it or not, I found a source for fresh stinging nettle leaves.  It's even sold in 2-lb portions, which is exactly how much I need for the we't.  The bad news is that it's only available during April.  I haven't ruled out my local Asian market, yet, but suspect this may be a highly seasonal item.  So, be assured it's coming, but I'm issuing a rain check for the time being.  


Meanwhile, today was time for another yebunna t'ej intervention.  This step was supposed to be performed on Wednesday; however, I was in Rochester for work.  I was originally scheduled to fly out of Rochester on Wednesday night, but that was before my flight was canceled in preparation for Winter Storm Barbara (we name our winter storms here in CT), who dumped all of 1/2 of an inch of snow on us.  I didn't get home until after 6 Thursday night, so I'm just getting around to the t'ej today.  


There really wasn't all that much that to this step.  All that needed to be done was to strain the hops from the brew, which was looking like this:

after another week of sitting

We stocked up on cheesecloth at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, after being directed to the dishcloths by a member of the Target sales staff.  I folded the cheesecloth into about four plies, then laid it into the smallest-holed colander I have; this set-up was then placed on top of a stock pot:

After two passes through the cheesecloth, I still wasn't all that impressed with the results:

still looking a little murky

So I decided to try putting it through a coffee filter, first through the rigged-up Mr. Coffee (my poor appliances):

Then through a colander lined with coffee filters:

Though there was a fair bit of silt left over in the coffee filters (and I even replaced them all once during the process because they clogged up):

I'm not sure the t'ej is any clearer:

Side by side (or top/bottom) comparison:

That gesho kitel is quite difficult to filter out.  Perhaps it clears a bit later in the process.  For now, it sits for 24 hours and tomorrow, I move onto the penultimate step, part of which also involves the recipe I was supposed to have covered for the 5th!

Yebunna T'ej (Coffee-Flavored Honey Wine), part II

The honey/water/yeast mixture has been sitting in the kitchen for three days, and the house has had a delicate aroma of honey and bread.  

this is what it looks like after sitting for 3 days

Today was the day I was to move onto the next step, the addition of the woody hops (gesho).  There are two forms of gesho: gesho inchet (the sticks) and gesho kitel (the leaves).  It seems that each has its own character and, therefore, imparts a different character to the t'ej, though I also found recipes that called for both.  Since the book didn't specifically mention which form to use, I decided to go with both.  

gesho inchet

gesho kitel

I measured out a small portion of the brew into a separate saucepan, then added the gesho:

appetizing, no?

stirring it did not really improve the visual

From here, it was just a matter of bringing it to a boil and letting it simmer for a bit.

It may be worth offering a confession here: I don't drink.  I usually don't even like the smell of alcoholic beverages, especially beer (my daughters, on the other hand, are always keen for a sniff of whatever beer Daddy's drinking; his goal is to raise a couple of beer snobs).  So I was quite surprised by how good this smelled bubbling away.  Probably because it's twigs and leaves, it's very earthy (albeit I keep thinking there's the faintest undertone of cannabis) and there's none of the hoppiness that I associate with beer.  I can't say it smells like something I'm hankering to drink, but it's much more pleasant than I thought it would be.  

after simmering

After it cooled, I added it to the mixture that wasn't heated:

Now I let it sit for another 5 days before moving on to the next step!  Though it'll have to be 6 days, because I have to go to Rochester, NY for work and will be flying back next Wednesday night.  

I also got another shipment of ingredients in from Brundo and have two more recipes waiting to be made!

Yebunna T'ej (Coffee-Flavored Honey Wine), part I

Now might be a good time to explain how it is I'm deciding upon the recipes that I work on each week.  In the introduction, I mentioned they'd be randomly selected, and, quite literally, that's the way it works.  Recipe #1 is on page 3 of the book; the last recipe is on page 238.  I go to random.org, fill in those numbers, and hit "Generate".  Not too romantic, but I like to be surprised.  


When I was directed by the fates to turn to page 51, I found myself in the alcoholic beverages section of the cookbook; specifically, the recipe is for yebunna t'ej -- coffee-flavored honey wine.  T'ej is very popular in Ethiopia and there are recipes for several different flavors in "Exotic Ethiopian Cooking".  For anyone interested in learning more, there is a very cool webpage on t'ej here, and from that page, there's a link to another page that lists the word for "honey wine" in most, if not all, of the languages spoken in Ethiopia.  My daughters are from the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region, or Sidama.  In the language spoken there, Sidaamu-Afoo, t'ej is also known as malawo.    

This recipe also started to make this project interesting!  Though some of my earliest memories involve the fermentation of dandelion and elderberry wines in my parents' basement, and my mother has distilled apple jack whiskey that could double as paint thinner, I myself have never even been interested in any form of home brewing.  My husband has brewed beer in the past, but was finding some of the ingredients quite unfamiliar, so it was clearly going to be upon me.  


I started with a web search that landed me here, a local home brewery store.  With shopping list in hand, I started my field trip.

I explained my purpose and the sales guy got very excited.  One of the ingredients I was looking for was something listed in the cookbook as "woody hops".  One of the things I like about this book is that they often include binomial nomenclature.  "Woody hops" can translate to many different things, but Rhamnus prinoides is pretty universal (in the book, it's misspelled "phinoides"; I can't say I was surprised).  

The sales guy had never heard of it by any name, but did a bit of a computer search and was excitedly calling out to me "they have whole FORUMS on this stuff".  What he wasn't able to find was a source.  Not surprisingly, people in LA and DC, where there are "Little Ethiopias", were mentioning finding them all over their neighborhood.  Sadly, we don't have the same population make-up here in Hartford.  

He was, however, able to help me with some equipment.  The other thing I like about this book is that in addition to the ingredients, they also offer an equipment list.  My list called for a 3-gallon wooden barrel, which I thought would look kind of cute.  Turns out they don't really make these much anymore, and while you can order one, it costs over $100.  So I ended up with this, instead:

It was about $20.  He also sold me the stopcock thing because "there's the traditional way and then there's the way that will yield better results".  Along those same lines, we talked about what I was going to be using for the fermentation.  The recipe I have pretty much is a natural fermentation process.  You mix together honey and water and let it sit in a warm place for three days.  Which can work great...if it's not the dead of winter in New England and if you're someplace like, say, Ethiopia.  It was suggested that if I really, truly wanted to try a natural fermentation, then I should wait until warmer weather.  He then passed me a small packet of champagne yeast, on the house:

In the end, my wine will be drier, and clearer, than it would if it was made traditionally, but at least this way, I will get wine.  I hope!

Once home, I needed to find the woody hops, also known in Amharic as gesho.  If I needed to, I was going to send my 79-year-old father-in-law in Arlington, VA out looking for the stuff, an errand he would have actually enjoyed, but I managed to find myself an on-line source at Brundo, which has very quickly become one of my favorite on-line sources for ingredients.  (Along those lines, I think I'm going to start a sidebar of on-line sources for Ethiopian ingredients/supplies, so if you have a favorite place, please let me know!)

Within a few days, there was a box on my doorstep with the coveted -- and necessary -- gesho, in both leaf and stick form (I'm still not entirely sure whether just one will suffice; the recipe doesn't really specify, but in other recipes I found on-line, it looks like that some use a mix, so I got both).  

Two packages of leaves and one package of the sticks and twigs.  

With all of what I needed to start, I did just that.  This is about a month-long process, and the first step was simply mixing the honey and the water together, then adding the yeast (going the non-traditional route).  

a picture of the yeast after it had sat for 15 minutes, as directed

a picture of the "brew" after adding the yeast

Now, I just let it sit for three days before proceeding to the next step.  Stay tuned!