Maheu – also spelled mahewu, mageu, and amahewu in isiZulu and isiXhosa – is a thin, mildly sour, non-alcoholic drink made by fermenting cooked maize porridge. It’s drunk every day across South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and neighboring countries, both homemade and from cartons in supermarkets, where it’s sold plain and flavored. It tastes lightly tangy and grainy, somewhere between a thin porridge and drinkable yogurt. Botswana’s ting is the porridge cooked from soured sorghum meal.
How Maheu Is Made
Maize meal is cooked into a thin porridge, cooled, and then a small amount of an “inoculum” – traditionally wheat flour, sorghum or millet malt, or some maheu from the last batch – is stirred in. Lactic acid bacteria sour it over one to three days in a warm spot. It’s distinct from umqombothi, the alcoholic sorghum beer, and close in spirit to West Africa’s ogi.
In a University of Johannesburg study that optimized home-style mahewu, the best white-maize version was fermented at about 25°C for 54 hours after boiling the porridge for about 19 minutes; yellow maize did best at 29°C for 72 hours. White-maize mahewu reached a pH of 3.5–4.2. Many bacterial genera were involved, including Weissella, Lactococcus, Enterococcus, Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc and Pediococcus, varying with the maize and the inoculum (Daji et al., 2022). As it ferments, some amino acids rise and new phenolic compounds appear (Kgoale et al., 2026).
Why a Good Start Matters
Spontaneous fermentation isn’t automatically safe in its first hours. When researchers fermented model mahewu without a starter, Enterobacteriaceae (the family that includes E. coli and Salmonella) dominated for the first 24 hours at 25°C and for 72 hours at 15°C, and Salmonella DNA was detected in all six finger millet malt samples tested. With added lactic acid bacteria starters, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum and Limosilactobacillus fermentum took over instead (Pswarayi et al., 2026). At home, that means:
- Cook the porridge thoroughly and use a clean container.
- Use fresh, mould-free maize meal and malt. Cooking and fermenting don’t remove aflatoxin: in Malawian thobwa, a similar maize-and-malt drink, brewing left about a third of it (Namaumbo et al., 2023).
- Ferment warm – about 25°C (77°F) – not in a cold room, so it sours quickly.
- Use an active inoculum: a few spoonfuls of a good previous batch works best; flour or malt adds microbes too.
- Make sure it’s clearly sour before drinking, then refrigerate.
Store-Bought Maheu
Commercial maheu is widely sold in South Africa in plain and flavored versions. A comparison of commercial fermented drinks found amasi, kefir and ryazhenka had more antioxidant capacity, while mahewu showed more potential to inhibit angiotensin-converting enzyme in lab tests (Moiseenko et al., 2021). Whether a carton contains live cultures depends on the product – check the label.
How Maheu Is Drunk
- Cold, straight from the fridge, as a filling drink or light meal.
- Sweetened a little, or flavored with fruit.
- In rural areas and at work sites, as an affordable, sustaining drink during the day.
Related: South Africa’s fermented milk amasi, Tanzania’s togwa and fermented drinks like kombucha. Malawi’s maize-and-malt drink thobwa is another relative.