We picked some violet, actually ALOT of violet, because in Denmark it’s kind of the first of the fresh stuff we can get our hands on in the new season. It’s way too much work picking every single one of these little flowers, but it’s also kind of irresistible after so many months of little sunshine, little colour and little feelings of aliveness. Just to be extra, we sorted and dropped a flower into each bottle (see picture), kind of as evidence for all the hard work lol, but mostly because it’s so pretty. This batch is dry, but actually tastes a lot like violet. Something at some point I didn’t believe was a thing, but now I can see/taste it is.
ps see picture of saga lying down as more evidence of hard labour
This half empty bottle of shiso? or beetroot? or something pink from summer has been reproducing scobies since I left it on the counter at home kind of opened. Picture 6 is taken after it produced its first scoby baby/kin. This is one way to make more kombucha, by leaving the bottle kind of open on the counter to then make more eventually. You can do this because what we make is very alive, and sometimes too alive, provoking all kinds of responses.
Anyway we are also making some kombucha kits for brewing at home, to gift friends as a holiday gift, or for your self to make some at home. Included are some good herbs dried over the summer, a jar, a recipe (based on some of our thoughts around kombucha) and some scoby/starter liquid.
We make this ensemble to be bought, but we want it to be very clear we also give away cultures for free (at a sometimes tedious arranged time :)). We give them away cause we believe the possibility to continue fermenting should always be free.
Anyway if you wanna brew at home, any of these options above are good enough. We brew towards a home style ourselves, because we like kombucha that's a little rough, not refined, not too complicated, never standardised, but just good.
Also I added some random photos from the autumn that I liked. ❤️
really been tempted to take pictures of all and every angle of this collection of vinegars that I've been gatekeeping for too long, cause I love them. Anyway we'll be bringing them to the biodiversity festival at the @groentmarked this weekend, finally!!
They're small batch (plus/minus 50 bottles per batch) raw, double fermented, wild, living and obv made from very careful produce grown/foraged by people we know.
We have:
Mirabelle
Quince
Thai basil
Shiso & currant
Black currant
Thai basil
Strawberry
Cherry
Spruce
Lavender
Tarragon
They're perfect for drinks, great on soups, salads, stews, and anything else you like fancy'ish vinegar for. 💔
The last of the elderflowers are just about clinging to the trees around Copenhagen until next year when we see them again.
We picked the first of the blooms on the 3rd of June, and the last on the 19th of June - that's just a bit more than 2 weeks of working with elderflower this year.
In kombucha the elderflowers really show us the season, the early bottles are bright, with lots of white flowers and tons of bubble, they taste more like kid's cordial. As the season goes on the batches get more musky, darker, bursting with pollen without loosing the quintessential of the flower(s), but more gentle with the bubble too.
This year we brewed with white elderflowers picked in the dog park, the cemetry and on the sidewalks of Dragør. We brewed some with pink ones we were gifted by Magnus from @roddercph and later we found more around the hedges of the school yards in Amager. We get to work closely with the elderflower in the green groves of the city where we live only because we brew in small batch.
All of this noticing and picking brought us about 7 different shades of elderflower, butter yellow, barbie pink, strawberry milkshake, daffodil, dusk pink/orange and yellow with green. That's what we love about it, it never is the same. If you would like to try it - many of the places we work with are serving the kombucha around town, perhaps you can even spot the colour references. <3
In celebration of our friendship and Scandinavian midsummer, we’re excited to release just in time a special kombucha with elderflowers and strawberries fermented by @tableferments
Strawberries and elderflowers are the heart of midsummer. Elderflowers are just about leaving their last scents in Copenhagen and strawberries are bursting with juice and seasonal joy at this moment. In this batch, we used white elderflowers picked by us a week or two ago around various green groves in Amager. The strawberries are from Klippingegaard farm, briefly macerated into the elderflower kombucha and with them we expect big fizz! The strawberry is in the nose of this batch and gives lots of summer liveliness - but the elderflower lasts longer, giving nostalgia and flowers. This batch was made by us for prolog - because they’re full of charm, and poetry. Go grab a glass whilst it lasts, it (+summer) will be over before we know it.
Since the beginning of May lilacs have been coming back into bloom in Copenhagen. For us lilac is sometimes a bit haunting, because to work with it is both a labour of love, for the smell of spring and liveliness, but also just a big labour of lilac mountain making. We swear it takes maybe three hours to make one mountain (see photo 3 for reference) and one mountain makes it’s way into one batch, which then makes approximately 60 bottles of kombucha. Anyway this is in some way a post about time, about slow time and that despite being haunted by lilac, we like it, because we like seasons, and we like stuff made by hand, we like flowers, and we like labours of love, and then fleetingness too. So the pictures are kind of a photo story for the time it takes to make this batch, how the scoby grows and grows into flowery shapes and finally how it stays all the way to the homes of those who drink it. The last of the lilacs are holding onto the trees for this week, but you can drink it too - it’s like eating granny smith apples with something that belongs only to lilac - but tbh we don’t know the word/s to describe it, perhaps you do?
We’ve been dreaming of making vinegar for forever it feels. Now we’ve bottled the first of the vinegars some that were started in the end of 2023. It has been a long big labour of love - to do it right, at least how we think of right, but also to learn as we work with yeasts, bacteria’s and microbes.
We’ve dreamt of vinegars that you can drink with sparkling water for fun or that you can add into salads or on soups and stews, or even in mayo. We dreamt of vinegar that is double fermented, raw, and full of life, made from herbs, fruits, leaves and wild yeasts to bring more nuance to acids. In the pictures you can see the first bottles we made, but then mostly the sounds of wild yeasts and bacterias as they liven up, finally some mothers of vinegar forming over the last two years.
Now you can buy these if you want:
HOLY BASIL SEED
All the seed heads from Brinkholm farms holy basil plus a few grapes making it a little pink, it was fermented for 1 year, and we made only 51 bottles. It tastes like bright herbal berry and candy-like. We made a mayo with it, and honestly it tasted like artichoke. 🤭
MIRABELLE PLUM
When we made this batch the mirabelles were just turning to ripen, so a little green still. It took 10 months to mature into a vinegar with a lot of acidity, but with alot of sweetness too, strong prune, date, raison feelings. Perfect for salads, but also we just drink it as is. 35 bottles made.
LEMON VERBENA
Lemon verbena from Sotofte’s garden that we dried back in 2023. This vinegar is green, sharp, a bit floral and perfect to drink also. It took 5 months to make this batch with 41 bottles made.
Also, the temporary labels are a reference to our burning hearts, both from and for vinegar. ❤️🔥
In autumn we’re inviting you all into our small messy ‘cellar’ to learn together about the kind of fermenting we do … so we’re hosting two mini workshops.
In the workshops we’ll be talking about fermenting with herbs, tea’s, flowers and fruits, how to work with the cultures, how to make a mess, and to follow your gut - and then also how to embrace non-standardisation as the norm.
Ultimately we want to talk with you about how we like to brew really delicious and always changing kombucha.
dates: 30th of november
time: 10:00-12:00
location: liflandsgade 2300
Write us if you’re interested on instagram or on [email protected] and we can send over all the details.
come drink tea with us? !
A lot has been happening in the cellar, we've been making a lot with purple basil from @orupdal_jordbrug which makes a fun barbie pink kombucha. We're still not certain if it's delicious cause of the colour or the taste - perhaps both. Also we've picked and made some beach rose kombucha, see the third picture where my mom is picking some in Sjællands Odde. Got some other things fermenting too, including this strawberry (hopeful) vinegar. And finally just been spending a lot of time in the cellar - also with my mom, her mostly smoking and us working fast and slow all at the same time. There is 115 bottles of purple basil going into Copenhagen this week 💒 they might be the last of the season 💋
