Homemade Iced Tea Natural Soda
You can do this with any type of tea. We brew a tea, and use the wild yeast that naturally occur on the skin of fruit and veg to create natural fermentation or carbonation. We add 60g of coconut sugar or sugar of choice per litre which acts as the food for the yeast for fermentation and natural carbonation. In the recipe below we use unwaxed organic lemon, organic ginger and organic fresh turmeric which naturally has wild yeast on the skin but mix and match to what you have readily available just ensure its organic and unwaxed. (See note below for other options)
Takes 6 days 10 minutes
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 2 Rooibos tea bags
- 60 g of coconut/ brown sugar approx ¼ cup
- 1 lemon
- 1 thumb sized piece of ginger
- ½ thumb sized piece of fresh turmeric
- Pinch black pepper
Instructions
Brew the tea
- Boil the kettle.
- Add the 2 rooibos tea bags to a 1 litre jar along with a large metal spoon and the sugar. Pour over 300-400ml of boiled water, mix well and leave to brew for 5 mins.
Add more water to bring temp down
- Add another 700ml-600ml of cold water to the tea to bring the temperature down below 40 degrees C.
- Finely slice the lemon, ginger and turmeric and add to the tea. Mix well. Seal the jar and leave to ferment for 3 days in indirect sunlight at room temperature.
Sieve and transfer to bottles
- Sieve the tea removing any fruits or bits and using a funnel transfer to either 1L glass bottle or 2 x 500ml bottles. Leave to ferment for a further 2 days till it reaches the degree of carbonation that you are happy with. Ensure to burp these bottles each day which simply means opening the lid for 1 second to release any build up of carbonation to avoid any unwanted messes or explosions!
Enjoy!
- Sweeten to your taste by adding some maple syrup or sweetener of choice and store in the fridge and enjoy!
Notes
Note on other fruit for fermentation - you can use virtually any other fruit with a skin on it just ensure that it is organically grown and does not have any wax on it. In the past we have used a wide variety of berries, apples, pears, citrus fruits and they have all worked great. We have also used some roots such as ginger & turmeric.