"YeasTea", get it? It's tea fermented by yeast!
Now I am aware that kombucha is also a yeast fermented tea drink too; kombucha is actually what made me think about throwing some yeast into a pitcher of tea to start with. While both drinks do involve yeast and tea, YeasTea differs from kombucha because the kombucha culture is a symbiotic mass of multiple yeast strains and species of acetic acid bacteria, which results in the final drink having little to no alcohol (the bacteria gobble it up) but potentially all sorts of acids, and the YeasTea culture is nothing more than our good friend Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which (despite the fact that I'm using baker's yeast) results in a tea drink that's alcoholic but lacks (for the most part) the same variety of acids found in kombucha.
To make a yourself a batch of YeasTea you'll need the following:
Kitchen Tools:
A sanitary glass vessel that can be sealed (I use a boiled mason jar)
A wooden spoon
A candy thermometer
Measuring Spoons:
-1/8th tsp
-1 tbsp
A kettle or other means to boil water
A measuring cup
A 1/2 end volume container to brew tea in (you could just brew the tea in the same glass vessel the drink will ferment in, but I find it easier to use a separate vessel)
Ingredients
Water
1 tea bag/cup
1 tbsp sugar/cup
~1/8th tsp baker's yeast/4 cups
Now I am aware that kombucha is also a yeast fermented tea drink too; kombucha is actually what made me think about throwing some yeast into a pitcher of tea to start with. While both drinks do involve yeast and tea, YeasTea differs from kombucha because the kombucha culture is a symbiotic mass of multiple yeast strains and species of acetic acid bacteria, which results in the final drink having little to no alcohol (the bacteria gobble it up) but potentially all sorts of acids, and the YeasTea culture is nothing more than our good friend Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which (despite the fact that I'm using baker's yeast) results in a tea drink that's alcoholic but lacks (for the most part) the same variety of acids found in kombucha.
To make a yourself a batch of YeasTea you'll need the following:
Kitchen Tools:
A sanitary glass vessel that can be sealed (I use a boiled mason jar)
A wooden spoon
A candy thermometer
Measuring Spoons:
-1/8th tsp
-1 tbsp
A kettle or other means to boil water
A measuring cup
A 1/2 end volume container to brew tea in (you could just brew the tea in the same glass vessel the drink will ferment in, but I find it easier to use a separate vessel)
Ingredients
Water
1 tea bag/cup
1 tbsp sugar/cup
~1/8th tsp baker's yeast/4 cups
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Signing UpStep 1: Brew the Tea
Boil water and make a batch of tea half the volume of your final intended batch size using 1 tea bag per final batch size cup. So, for example, if you want to make 4 cups of YeasTea, brew a batch of tea using 2 cups of water with 4 tea bags. Let the tea bags steep for between 10-20 minutes.
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The danger of bottling beer is "beer grenades", which is terrifying when you open your cabinet and there is glass and beer every where.
Its an awesome idea, and I'm going to try it, but sanitize some tin foil and rubber band it onto your mason jar. That way you don't lose a hand.
Having only just recently gotten into brewing and what not, I also don't really know what influence on the flavor using champagne yeast instead of baker's would have, but based on what I know so far I'd have to guess that using champagne yeast would likely yield a product that contains more alcohol and less of a "yeastie" hint to it.
Overall it kind of tastes tea, but the yeast imparts this hard to describe flavor to it. I mean there might be a bit of a "yeastie" taste to it, sure, but there's something else to it that I can't really put my finger on. Again, if I had to guess, I'd say the extra flavor is from some of the yeast spilling out their insides after undergoing a bit of autolysis. Though it tastes pretty good straight, personally my favorite way to drink it is to mix in some vanilla soy milk (or plain milk) and sugar. I'm sorry for being a bit vague about the taste right now, but I'm going to be opening up a fresh batch tomorrow night most likely so maybe I'll be able to describe it better then.
Sorry for being so vague and so wordy; if you have any other questions please feel free to ask away.