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Home » Instagram » This is the nicest tea I have ever tasted. And, not being a coffee drinker, I have downed a lot of tea. It’s made from the shells of cacao beans. It literally tastes like chocolate. It has no caffeine. It makes me feel soft. It makes me feel special. It makes me feel calm. And those things are gold. Happy afternoon everyone.
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This is the nicest tea I have ever tasted. And, not being a coffee drinker, I have downed a lot of tea. It’s made from the shells of cacao beans. It literally tastes like chocolate. It has no caffeine. It makes me feel soft. It makes me feel special. It makes me feel calm. And those things are gold. Happy afternoon everyone.

April 5, 2020 by Ali

Tags:cacaohusktea cacaoshelltea cacaotea chocolatetea favedicacao
Previous PostA couple of people have asked me how the cook up works. I’m chuffed (which means very pleased in English slang!) as it’s the first one and I wasn’t sure who’d want to join in :-) So here it is put simply. A community cook up that you can do in your own time with your own twist. Then come share the meal here so we can all see what you’ve been doing inside the (in my opinion) most beautiful room of your 4 walls. Come join in, if you fancy!
Next PostWe usually travel into Florence to get our flour – wholegrain local spelt. Not being able to do that, we’re relying on the amazing ladies at the local health food store. They’ve only had semi-integrale (partially wholegrain) spelt recently, so my #sourdough loaves have been a bit whiter. I love not slashing them and seeing where they want to burst out ;-)

Recent Posts

  • This ancestral beer, made with Italian spelt, gets fermented with the help of sourdough starter and the yeast and bacteria I have living around me. There are no commercial yeasts in it. And there wouldn’t have been in any beer further than a hundred or so years back, as yeasts were not a commercial thing. . For centuries, before industrialisation, yeasts were valued so highly that they were associated with divine intervention and when they appeared they were honoured and nurtured. . My favourite example of this is the yeast log. This was a piece of carved wood that was placed in the fermenter as the beer was in progress. It would catch the yeasts and bacteria. When brewing was complete, it’d be taken out and hung up to dry. The live organisms would remain on it in a dormant state. Then, when it was time to brew again, it’d be taken down and placed in with the liquid. Crazy simple, yet so effective. . I want a yeast log. I can’t tell you how much I want a yeast log. . Getting all my ancestral beer inspiration kicks from the #stephenharrodbuhner book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers. Will put a few pictures in my story if you want a nose. . Shame you can’t have a taste of the beer too. It’s unusual. But good.
  • I love bread that bursts where it feels like. . I’m not into ‘ears’ and I haven’t got the patience for patterns on my bread. As you can see, sometimes I even forget to score! . There’s such beauty in the cracks that loaves naturally make, left to their own devices. The processes involved in bread are so much bigger than me and, as a home-baker, I control so many of them. Why not just let this one be? . And I often wonder if, like tea leaves, bread ‘bursts’ could be read. . I wonder what this one’s telling me? Any ideas?!
  • This is porridge – but not like I’ve ever known it. It is porridge made out of ‘waste’; left-overs from my ancestral beer-making process. . To make the beer (which is again, not like any beer I’ve ever known!), I use local spelt, that I sprout and bake before fermentation. When the drink is ready, I sieve out the large spelt chunks and use them in bread-making. I then pour the liquid into bottles, flavour and then leave for a few more days to ferment. As that happens the sediment falls and settles on the bottom. It’s this that I use, after we’ve drink the beer, for porridge. . This batch of beer was flavoured with molasses, fennel seeds and orange zest. . Those flavours sit so beautifully on top of the tangy spelt and the consistency is smooth and creamy. . It’s pre-digested and full of postbiotics and paraprobiotics. . And, it makes the beer that we love completely zero-waste :-)
  • We made lard this weekend and, as always happens, after we’d created a stash of the creamy-white fat we had, leftover, the crunchy, delicious ‘cracklings’. . Last time, I ground these up and made a sourdough layered Slovakian biscuit (thanks to @almostbananas). This time, I thought I’d keep them whole and stay in Italy – so I made this sourdough spelt sea salt, rosemary and lard crackling focaccia. . It was delicious, the lard cracklings gave off even more of their fat into the dough whilst cooking. Think crunchy, salty, nutty, fatty. We ate it warm from the oven.
  • I didn’t move to Italy for lemons…well, not totally, at least ;-) . Raisin and Sicilian lemon yeast water on the go. I’m hoping this will raise a bread in a few days. And I’m going to have a go at drinking anything that’s left over – a probiotic bitter lemon, I’m hoping.

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