I have to give credit for this recipe for a university friend of ours called Alun. It's quick, easy and cheap, even to make big 5-gallon batches. If you let it ferment out and bottle it properly it's very nice, but when we were students we just used to dip a jug into the bucket and filter it through a coffee filter as and when we needed it.Alun's Tea Wine
For each 5 gallons -make 40 cups of strong tea, 12.5 lbs of sugar, 2.5lbs of raisins chopped, 2 lemons sliced. Make up to 5 gallons with boiled water. When cool, add wine yeast, following instructions on the packet.
On our recipe it says "ready in 4 weeks", but I think that's only for students. My dad used to say "Not a drop is sold 'til it's 7 days old". Nowadays I'd ferment it out, rack it twice and bottle it properly. But if you want to do it the "gut rot" way, be my guest.
8 comments:
Never thought of making wine from tea, but, now that you mention it, it's probably a no-brainer, particularly if you do it properly!
Joanna
joannasfood.blogspot.com
"Nowadays I'd ferment it out, rack it twice and bottle it properly"
Rack it twice?.. wait and wait until it drops clear and stops fermenting, rack into a clean demi, leave it a couple of days to make sure it's really stopped working and then bottle..
I have no desire to do any more work than is absolutely necessary..
Oh.. while we're at it.. don't put homemade wine into proper wine bottles and cork it.. put it into recycled screwtop bottles instead.. not only are the bottles reusable many times, but the lids are too.. keep them clean and dry and they'll last at least a dozen reuses.. they also have the benefit that if the wine does go into a fierce secondary fermentation for some reason, they are a lot more forgiving of an excess build-up of CO2 and leak it out, rather than exploding..
Never heard of tea wine.
Peppylady - actually it's sort of raisin and tea wine, the name is more historic than descriptive. The raisins (which are dried grapes after all) add vinosity (which means "wine-ey-ness") and the tea adds tannin, so the finished wine is very drinkable.
I've often wondered what would happen if I made it with a speciality tea, such as jasmine or oolong or earl grey, but I've never actually got round to doing an experimental gallon.
This looks pretty good stuff. I've got some 5 gallon demi johns in the barn and definitely will make this. Thanks for sharing
wow, I have never heard of tea wine!! what a delicious idea!!
I am curious about this recipe, is it possible to make it one gallon at a time? Also what can of tea?
I don't see why you couldn't make a single gallon. You'd need to divide all the ingredients by five, that's all. As for what can of tea - do you mean "what kind of tea"? We use whatever tea we're drinking. Usually something fair trade. If it isn't nice tea, I wouldn't expect it to make nice wine.
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