Tej
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Tej (disambiguation).
Tej is a mead or honey wine brewed and consumed in Ethiopia. It is flavored with the powdered leaves and bark of gesho, a hops-like bittering agent which is a species of buckthorn.
A sweeter, less-alcoholic version called berz, aged for a shorter time, is also made. The traditional vessel for drinking tej is a rounded vase-shaped container called a berele, which looks like a Florence flask. Tej has a deceptively sweet taste that masks its high alcohol content, which varies greatly according to the length of fermentation.
It is usually homemade but is available from bars across Ethiopia and usually drunk in tejbeits (tej pubs). The best tej is, by common agreement, made in Lalibela, whose bees are reputed to make the sweetest honey.
Some accounts of tej depict it as more of a honey beer than a true mead, with raw honey being added as a sweetener to a fermented, gesho flavored grain beverage, thus raising the question of large regional or ethnic differences in Ethiopia's Tej tradition.
Slang: Another variation of Tej is often used in the city of Cambridge to denote a person of faulty character, lacking in the typical social niceties. Thieves, for one, can be said to act like Tej (which is an ideal rather than a specific noun). Another variation is for a person that behaves in a manner that is universally maligned and causes great irritation in the recipient of the action. This specifically stems from the sweet nature of the alcohol, using its honey beer nature as a deceptively sweet deterrent, distracting the victim of the situation.
Legend:Tej is also a creature of myth in North Carolina, said to prowl the forests at night looking for food. His origins are not 100% known but date back to the late 1800's post Civil War especially around the Raleigh area. Tej is not a large creature, possibly 20 pounds and definetly feline but he has been rumored to have killed many small animals and humans. Possibly a ghost story, possibly an urban legend, the myth of Tej will live on though in the hearts of children in the area.
