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Alcoholic drinks from Ethiopia

Tella (talla)ጠላ

Tella is Ethiopia's household beer, brewed in a smoked clay pot from barley malt, gesho leaves, pieces of baked flatbread and dark roasted maize flour. It ferments in three stages over about two to four weeks, is thinned with water and strained, and comes out grey-white to brown with a few per cent alcohol.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks21 days – 33 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceMakes about 25–28 L of tella, the amounts given in a 2020 review.
Gesho powder1 kg[fentie2020]
Malt flour (bikil)0.5 kgBarley soaked, sprouted under banana leaves, sun-dried and ground[fentie2020]
Baked kita bread5 kgMillet, sorghum and teff flour in equal proportions, baked as flatbread and broken into pieces[fentie2020]
Roasted ground maize (asharo)10 kg[fentie2020]
Water30 L[fentie2020]
Starterspontaneous; the ingredients and utensils are the major source of microorganisms

Total time across the recorded steps: 21 days – 33 days

Start
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What changes: Smoke from olive wood cleans and scents the clay pot

Step 1 of 6
Smoke-clean clay pot
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Lactobacillus

Output: prepared pot.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

smoke cuts down unwanted microbes and adds aroma

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

Tella is Ethiopia's household beer, brewed in a smoked clay pot from barley malt, gesho leaves, pieces of baked flatbread and dark roasted maize flour. It ferments in three stages over about two to four weeks, is thinned with water and strained, and comes out grey-white to brown with a few per cent alcohol. Made in 6 steps over 21 days – 33 days. The longest step, add roasted maize flour (asharo) and ferment again (difdif), takes 10–20 days (Fentie E.G. et al. 2020) and runs at 20–25 °C (Fentie E.G. et al. 2020). Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Lactobacillus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step10–20 daysReported[fentie2020]Add roasted maize flour (asharo) and ferment again (difdif)
Temperature20–25 °CReported[fentie2020]Add roasted maize flour (asharo) and ferment again (difdif)
AciditypH 4.7 → 3.87Reported[fentie2020]Add water, ferment briefly and filter

What makes this one different

Tella is bittered with gesho leaves rather than hops, and its colour comes from dark roasted maize flour (asharo). It ferments in three stages over about two to four weeks, where the sorghum opaque beers in our African opaque sorghum beer entry ferment for 10 to 24 hours.

Related ferments

Safety

Tella keeps no more than 5–7 days at room temperature; after that Acetobacter turns it too sour to drink.

History and sources

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

Until the early decades of the twentieth century, women were the only brewers of beer in Ethiopia, and tella was brewed for particular ceremonies, not every day. It is a holy drink (tsebel) at Orthodox Christian ceremonies and was drunk at the gibir feasts of lords, kings and emperors. The gendered order of brewing changed in the early twentieth century, when industrial beer production began and men took over its production. Senishaw and Röschenthaler (2020) say women began to sell tella in local beer houses only in about the last three decades.

  1. [wp-tella] Wikipedia, Tella (outline only)wiki
  2. [fentie2020] Fentie E.G. et al. 2020, Cereal- and fruit-based Ethiopian traditional fermented alcoholic beverages, Foods 9(12):1781paper
  3. [sanzlopez2025] Sanz-López C. et al. 2025, Microbial ecology of selected traditional Ethiopian fermented products, Front. Microbiol. 16:1570914paper
  4. [senishaw2020] Senishaw G. and Röschenthaler U. 2020, Breweries in Ethiopia and the politicisation of beer, Brewery History 185:19–40paper
  5. [mulaw2025] Mulaw G., Gebregziabher T., Tesfay T. 2025, A review on the microbiology of Ethiopian traditional fermented beverage products, Front. Nutr. 12:1519547 (colour of tella)paper