Tella (ṭälla) is Ethiopia’s household beer: a cloudy, smoky, bitter-sour drink brewed from roasted grain and malt and bittered with gesho (Rhamnus prinoides), the leaves and stems of a native buckthorn that plays the part hops play in European beer. Like most Ethiopian traditional drinks, it’s made locally and drunk close to where it’s brewed, and with tej, borde and shamita it’s one of Ethiopia’s best-known traditional drinks – which together hold a market share equal to commercial alcoholic drinks (Fentie et al., 2020). Where tej is honey wine, tella is grain beer.
How Tella Is Brewed
Recipes vary by household and region, and tella can be made from barley, wheat, maize, finger millet, sorghum or teff. The process reviewed by Fentie and colleagues runs in stages (Fentie et al., 2020):
- Bikil (malt). Barley is soaked for about 24 hours, kept under banana leaves for about three more days to germinate, sun-dried and ground.
- Gesho. Gesho leaves and stems are sun-dried and ground to a powder.
- Tejet. Bikil and gesho powder are mixed with water and left for two days.
- Kita. A dough of equal parts millet, sorghum and teff flour is baked into a flat bread, broken up and added; the pot is sealed for 5–7 days.
- Asharo. Maize soaked for about three days is dried, roasted dark and ground; this flour goes in next, and the pot ferments sealed for another 10–20 days into a thick mash called difdif.
- Finishing. Water is added, the mixture stands for 5–6 hours, and it is filtered and served.
One batch formula for 25–28 litres uses 1 kg gesho powder, 0.5 kg bikil, 5 kg kita, 10 kg asharo and 30 litres of water. The dark roasted asharo gives tella its colour and smoky flavour.
What Ferments It
Tella ferments spontaneously, seeded by the ingredients and the pots. Saccharomyces cerevisiae dominates and makes the alcohol, with Lactobacillus and Acetobacter also among the main genera (Fentie et al., 2020). Lactic acid bacteria isolated from tella include Pediococcus pentosaceus, Latilactobacillus curvatus, Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, some tolerating 8–10% ethanol in the lab (Yehuala et al., 2024). Gesho’s bitterness comes mainly from a compound called geshoidin, and the plant also helps shape which microbes thrive: in one study, replacing gesho with moringa leaves held back the yeasts and gave a less alcoholic, more acidic drink (Birhanu et al., 2021).
Strength and Shelf Life
Tella samples from different localities measured 3.98–6.48% alcohol by volume, and alcohol rises and pH falls as tella matures (Fentie et al., 2020). At room temperature it keeps for no more than about 5–7 days before it turns too sour to drink, largely because Acetobacter turns alcohol into acetic acid when air gets in. Stored tella keeps acidifying: in one 10-day study, acidity rose from 0.63% to 0.99% (Birhanu et al., 2021). Pasteurisation extends its life more than filtering does.
Making It at Home
The recipe card scales the batch formula down tenfold to make about 2.5 litres. Gesho is sold dried, as leaves, stems or powder, in Ethiopian groceries; other buckthorns aren’t substitutes. Use barley malt from a homebrew shop if you don’t want to sprout your own, and make the kita from equal parts millet, sorghum and teff flour (or all teff). Tella made with barley malt contains gluten. Brew it alongside injera, Ethiopia’s fermented teff flatbread, which shares the teff and the patience.
Relatives
Tella is one of Africa’s many home grain beers: Kenya’s busaa (soured, roasted maize with finger millet malt), South Africa’s umqombothi and West Africa’s pito. Unlike them, it gets a long, sealed fermentation and a bittering herb.