inexpensive but delicious wine from tea...

[BernardSmith]

Home made wine is really very easy to make and one kind of wine that is very inexpensive but which can be very delicious is a wine made from tea. I just fermented a gallon (4 l) of lapsang souchong tea - using about 30 g of tea over which I poured a scant 4 l of water and allowed the tea to steep for about 5-10 minutes. I strained the tea and allowed it to cool. When cool to room temperature. I added about 1.36 k of honey but this could have been about 1 k of sugar. I then added some wine yeast (D47 was what I had).

Honey has no nutrients for the yeast so I added about 1/2 t of nutrients but you can simply proof some dry bread yeast in a little sugar water and then microwave or boil this to kill the yeast. The dead cells provide the yeast with the nutrients they need.

To give this a little kick before bottling my plan is to add 1 T of lemon extract I made and perhaps 1 T of grains of paradise. Lapsang souchong tea has a smoky flavor and it took about 3 weeks for this tea to drop from close to a starting gravity of about 1.090 to .992 (about 12% alcohol by volume). This is still in a carboy as it clears bright but I tasted this yesterday (started the whole thing on 19th of June) and it really is quite delightful for a wine that is three weeks old .. I think the ingredients may have cost me about $15.00 altogether and 4 l will give me 5 bottles (750 mil) so with the honey about $3.00 a bottle.

[Green Aura]

That sounds interesting, if a little weird (smoky wine?). I've made wine from fruit teas and added ordinary black or green tea to red country wines to bump up the tannin a bit, but never entirely from tea.

It sounds like a great wine to start during the winter months when there's not much fresh produce about.

Let us know how it turns out - I'm guessing it will change over time because of the tannins - yes?

[Brewtrog]

Tea wine is one that I make regularly, although I've only made it from Morrison's own brand red label tea bags (ignoring the fruit tea bags). It always make a surprisingly good wine, both young and old (if I resist supping it for long enough).
I tend to use a little over a kilo of sugar for a gallon of wine, but that's me liking stuff on the stronger side