Ethiopian Mead: Tej

I have a lot of Ethiopian clients. One of them recently found out I brew and brought some of his brew into the shop. It was definitely a mead. He called it Tej. He said he would teach me how to make it, but only if I try to make it without his help first (I think he wants to get a good laugh).

Anyway, I'm up to the challenge, but wanted to ask around if anyone has any tips or thoughts on it. Anyone here made Tej or Berz before? Anyone have a recipe for either?

I've read elsewhere that Gesho is a key ingredient. Any tips on the quality of Gesho and making sure you're getting the good stuff?

I admit, I haven't tried to make a mead before, so plan on only putting half my batch this year into Tej, but thoughts are welcome.

Thanks!

Not seen any other mentions of tej here, but a search of the gotmead forums should produce enough research to be getting on with, as I seem to recall a number of mentions about it there.......

Dogfish head make a tej. I can dig the recipe out if you want but as far as i remember it is probably not 100% authentic. If you can find it watch the episode of sam's Calagione TV show where he makes it.

Here is a thread on this site that I participated in a long while back all about Tej:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/tej-honey-mead-beer-335363/

I have a link in there to a site that gave me a lot of insight to Tej making. There is also a recipe there that the OP posts. Hope this helps.

There's actually a lot of information about Tej on here, talked a lot about it when The Sam Caligione Tv show on Discovery came out. I even posted info on where to find Gesho, one of the specific ingredients that go it it. And a few folks brewed it. In Detroit there's a large Ethiopian Community, and there's several Resteraunts here, including what now is a chain of places called "The Blue Nile" that was started by the former chef of the President of Ethiopia. I've been drinking Tej since I was old enough to drink (I'm addicted to Ethiopian Food.) They even have their own brand available in a couple wine shops around.

Here's a thread on Tej

Here's someone's take on a Tej Beer I just found. I think it's a take on DogFish Head's beer.

Thanks guys! I had tried to search for Tej on the forum, but was getting the result that "Tej" was too short to search for .

maztec said:

Thanks guys! I had tried to search for Tej on the forum, but was getting the result that "Tej" was too short to search for .

Click to expand...

maybe something like "tej ethiopian mead" would have done the trick ?

I did an advance search for titles with Ethiopian in it with the parameters set for "show threads only."