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Soft drinks from Mexico

Tejuino (mestizo, low-alcohol)tejuino

Nixtamalised maize dough is mixed with water and piloncillo into a drink, then left 12 to 24 hours with some old tejuino to sour. Additives such as salt and lemon juice are incorporated, and the drink is sour and low in alcohol.

Fully documentedSoft drinks12 h – 25 hFamily: Chicha de jora (malted-maize chicha)

Recipe

Tejuino (mestizo, low-alcohol), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: AlejandroLinaresGarcia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedStreet-vendor process with no fixed amounts in the sources read.
Nixtamalised maize dough (masa)[rubio2021]
PiloncilloAdded to start the fermentation[rubio2021]
Old tejuino (tejuino viejo)Kept back from an earlier batch as the starter[rubio2021]
Salt and lemon juiceNamed as additives in the study; it does not say when they are added[rubio2021]
Starterold tejuino (tejuino viejo)

Total time across the recorded steps: 12 h – 25 h

Start
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What changes: Masa is stirred with water into a mixture

Step 1 of 5
Mix the masa with water
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: masa and water mixture.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Nixtamalised maize dough is mixed with water and piloncillo into a drink, then left 12 to 24 hours with some old tejuino to sour. Additives such as salt and lemon juice are incorporated, and the drink is sour and low in alcohol. Made in 5 steps over 12 h – 25 h. The longest step, add old tejuino and ferment, takes 12–24 h (Rubio-Castillo Á.E 2021). Pichia yeasts and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum in commercial (street) tejuino and Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Limosilactobacillus fermentum in artisanal tejuino do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step12–24 hReported[rubio2021]Add old tejuino and ferment
AciditypH 3.4–4Measured[rubio2021]Add old tejuino and ferment

What makes this one different

Street tejuino starts from nixtamal masa sweetened with piloncillo and sours in a day, seeded by old tejuino. Indigenous tesgüino and artisanal tejuino start from germinated maize and ferment for days; mestizo tesgüino is lower in alcohol than the Indigenous drink.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Artisanal tejuino (germinated maize)Maize is germinated in the dark and sun-dried 2–3 days, mixed with water and cooked; the sediment ferments 24 h, then the whole is filtered and fermented about 7 days, to pH 2.91–3.52.
  • Tesgüino (Tarahumara and others)Germinated maize or maize-stalk juice, sometimes with plant barks; see the tesgüino entry.

Safety

Total coliforms were absent from all eight tejuino samples tested (four artisanal, four commercial), and the samples were sour, at pH 2.91–3.96. The study counted coliforms, aerobic bacteria, yeasts and moulds and reports no test for named pathogens. It isolated Staphylococcus warneri from commercial tejuino, called Staphylococcus undesirable and related it to food handling.

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus warneri, isolated from commercial tejuino; the authors call Staphylococcus undesirable and relate it to food handling.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The names tesgüino and tejuino come from the Nahuatl tecuin, "heartbeat". The mestizo drink of northern and western Mexico is lower in alcohol than Indigenous tesgüino and is drunk mainly as a refreshment in hot weather.

  1. [rubio2021] Rubio-Castillo Á.E., Méndez-Romero J.I., Reyes-Díaz R. et al. 2021, Tejuino, a traditional fermented beverage, composition, safety quality and microbial identification, Foods 10:2446, doi:10.3390/foods10102446paper
  2. [lopez2025] López-Reynoso M., Martínez-Medina G.A., Londoño-Hernández L., Aguilar-Zarate P. et al. 2025, Corn-based fermented beverages, nutritional value, microbial dynamics, and functional potential, an overview, Foods 15(1):27 (section 4.3, tejuino)paper
  3. [fao138-ch4] Haard N.F. et al. 1999, Fermented cereals: a global perspective, FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 138, ch. 4 (tesgüino; mestizo versions low in alcohol)gov