Author: patwil03

In the old days coffee had caffeine while green tea was said to have thiene, a similar but different compound. In more recent decades the science has proven this to be inaccurate. Camelia sinensis produces the exact compound, caffeine, as coffee, yerba mate, and other caffeinated plants. The difference in the feeling between coffee and green tea comes from the different alkaloid profile of each organism. In particular, C. sinensis produces a compound called L-theonine, an amino acid, which promotes calmness and relaxation while simultaneously slowing the absorption of caffeine into the blood. This creates a broad peak of caffeine levels in the blood versus the sharper peak provided by coffee.

So if your goal is sustained, not jittery energy then small doses of green tea is the way. If you need a burst of energy quickly then coffee may be preferable.

Sometimes described as ‘Chinese yoga’, qigong (pronounced chee – gong) translates roughly to energy practice or energy work. It includes the physical practices of breathing and movement along with calmness of the mind and overall relaxation, these are the attributes which I believe people relate to yoga. Though, qigong also includes somewhat theoretical aspects and these are now being proven by modern science. They include the mapping of 12 body meridians, or pathways for qi (energy). These seem to follow major lymph pathways and the movement practice of qigong is said to open these pathways. The practitioners I have been following actually focus on specific areas where lymph node clusters are now known to exist.

The lymph system of the body is a very interesting one. it is responsible for movement of essential immune cells and compounds, along with other functions. Unlike the bloodstream, the lymph system have no pump and its fluids are moved by the movement of the body. Certain movements have been found to enhance the flow of certain lymph pathways and nodes. This led to the development of a system of movements which gets the lymph system flowing.

Along with moving lymph juices, qigong calms the mind and aims to link breath with movement. This form of moving meditation has a unique effect on my mind and body. I feel lighter on my feet, not as beat as after a yoga session, and allows awareness be be brought to energy flows which are sensed outside of the body, or maybe on the surface.

Qigong also includes the practice of acupuncture, which uses small needles to block and open energy pathways of the body. I was initially skeptical, but there is photographic and primary literature evidence which shows that acupuncture can and has many times been used to block pain signals from a region of the body so that a surgeon can perform surgery on that part of the body without any other anesthesia. The most famous example is a trip to China by president Nixon, where he was shown a waking patient who was conversing with a doctor while her chest was being sliced open and her heart operated on.

The history of qigong is of interest to me. Qigong came about when an emperor of China could no longer participate in annual festivities which required physical exertion. He instead developed a dance, or set of movements which in his elder years were reputed to ease his arthritis and enhance his vitality. Yoga and qigong are said to have evolved separately, even though they originated only about 1000 miles away. This is said to be due to the Himalayan Mountains being a large physical barrier to culture exchange. The mixing of these two cultures is said to not have been prolific until the development of the silk road and trade between Europe, India, and China about 2000 years ago. I assume there would have been some mixing as monks and possibly adventurers or traders found ways through or around the mountains. But this partial isolation enabled the two systems of breathing, meditation, and movement to create two quite different products which each have great benefit.

Recently proven by science, long known by many cultures, there is a 5th category of flavor that we can experience. Sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and now xian-wei. This knowledge was popularized though the Japanese term umami, though the Chinese have also long known of this sensation and termed it Xian-wei.

It’s triggered by certain amino acids, most notably glutamate, which are the building blocks of protein. So, as protein breaks down amino acids are liberated into solution and contribute to the heavenly scent and flavor of fermented foods.

The English word for xian-wei might be savory. I’d certainly like my suan cai to be savory, but a savory beverage could be delicious as well. Something akin to kombucha or ginger ale with added seaweed, mushrooms, or other foods high in glutamate, guanylate, and/or inositol. These are the three known xian-wei triggers.

I’d like to make a suan cai that minimizes sodium by using trace mineral supplements to help create the saline environment which promotes the lactic acid bacteria and other microbes responsible for safe and healthy fermentation.

Lushui is what the Chinese use in low sodium suan cai. It’s seawater with the sodium mostly removed, leaving mostly magnesium chloride and 70 plus trace elements. It has been used for thousands of years by the Chinese in fermentation, baby food mixtures, and other human health related products.

 

I did a little experiment this morning. I have Trace Mineral Drops from ConcenTrace that I’d like to use however, fermented cabbage recipes provide the amount of salt necessary in either mass (eg – grams) or volume (eg – tablespoons) of a solid and the trace mineral supplement is a solution. So, I weighed an aluminum vessel, weighed 10ml of the trace mineral drops into the aluminum vessel, heated until the weight stopped dropping, and will now do some math to figure out about how much salt is in these drops.

• Aluminum vessel weight = 4.00g
• Aluminum vessel with 10mL trace mineral drops weight = 16.42g
• 10mL trace mineral drop weight = 12.42g
• Post evaporation aluminum vessel with trace mineral precipitate weight = 7.57g
• Trace mineral precipitate weight = 3.57g

This works out to 0.357g of trace mineral salts per milliliter. The aluminum vessel was only about 12 cm tall and I could see where splattering ad occurred and precipitate was left behind all the way up the walls. Meaning, some was likely lost over the walls. My guess is the supplement has between ⅓ and ½ of a gram of trace minerals per milliliter. I’m waiting on a response from the manufacturer on mineral salt content in grams per liter. If I don’t hear back I’ll use 0.40 g/ml in my recipe calculations.

I’ve read reports that ~2 kg of cabbage will fit in a half gallon jar and the salt content should be between between 1.5% and 2.5% of the cabbage’s weight, so 40g salt for 2 kg of cabbage would be 2.0%. I think I’d like to aim for this number.

• Possible salt ratio
  • 50 ml of concentrace (equal to ~20g of trace mineral salts@ 0.40 g/mL)
  • 10 g himalayan/other
  • 10 g salish/other

Addition of seaweed may be able to account for the additional mineral salt content needed besides the trace minerals and has some sodium chloride for flavor. I’ll need to check on specific products and their mineral salt contents down at the food co-op.

I’m going to Fujian, in southeast China. In particular Wuyishan, a quarter to a half a million people call this city home. Likely much closer to a quarter million, but China isn’t very open with it’s stats. Wuyishan sits at the base of the Wuyi Mountains on the southwestern end of 36 peaks, some over 2,000 meters high. From Wuyishan it’s about 1,800 km east from Yunnan’s eastern border. This is almost exactly the distance from Seattle to LA. Yunnan is a large and climatically diverse province, but is often subject to large and sudden precipitation from monsoon weather with dry patches in between. Wuyishan of the Fujian province is in the rain shadow of the Wuyi Mountains and receives consistent moderate rain events adding up to even more rainfall than the PNW.

Wuyishan is known for famous daoist poets, ancient temples, beautiful scenery, and its unique tea. While tea from Yunnan is puer, tea of the Wuyi mountain range was once called bohea, now simply Wuyi tea.

This tea is known for its high mineral content and considerable Qi. The minerals come from the rocky soil through which C. sinensis grows. The strong Qi component, to me, indicates a possibly higher caffeine content or unique biochemical profile one or either of which provides the drinker with increased Qi, when compared to teas grown elsewhere.

I currently view Qi as a smooth, as opposed to jittery, energy when it comes to the effects of tea. This may change as I get to know the culture, plants, geographc areas, and myself  a little better.

Suan cai, pao cai, sauerkraut, and kimchee can all be made without the addition of any starter cultures, but adding a little bit of inoculant gets things going quicker and in some cases produces a more diverse, stable, and productive microbial system.

My past research into Effective Microorganisms (EM) as developed by Dr. Higa for composting have proven to me that this inoculant creates a highly stable and diverse microbial environment which produces a myriad of enzymes, vitamins, antioxidants, antibiotics (which work against pathogens and “bad” bacteria), and other beneficial compounds through fermentation.

I’ve recently come to find out that this can be used for food preservation and can even be consumed directly as a probiotic and a natural vitamin, enzyme, and supplement for other nutrients. The company that makes it, Terganix, assured me that EM1, the original effective microorganism inoculant meant for bokashi, is made by an identical process as their human probiotic product. They are simply not allowed, by law, to sell a product as a plant fertilizer/soil amendment and as a product meant for human consumption at the same time, so they slap a different label on it. 

I’ve ordered a bottle of EM1 and will be using it as a starter culture/inoculant.

Another option is using the juices and/or veggies from a friends ferment or a store bought, and trusted, product. I may mix a little of this with EM1 to increase microbial diversity and add microbes already adapted to eating cabbage and other vegetables. A side-by-side comparison of ferments started with one or the other would be interesting as well. This may be a future project though.

Chinese fermented cabbage and other veggies, suan cai, has been traditionally made from napa cabbage, hakusai, in northern China and from bok choy in southern China. Haksuai is a late summer/fall green while bok choy can be grown in the spring/early summer in our climate. I’ve checked the local farmer’s market, co-ops, etc. in search of some bok choy and haksuai and found both at the local food co-op! Both are about $2.00/lb. I think I’ll do a jar or two of each. I’ll also include some carrot and beet as sugar sources for the microbes and likely some onion and garlic as their prebiotic nature will promote beneficial microorganisms while detering harmful ones. I’d like to dry and grind some enoki or shiitake mushrooms to add as well, this should turn up the xian-wei (umami) flavor. Seaweeds (eg – kombu and dulse) can also enhance xian-wei and will add some additional mineral nutrients, I think I’ll add some of these as well. 

Sources are slim on the differences, but basically… Suan cai is considered a type of pao cai. Suan cai is compressed fermented cabbage, likely haksuai, with a variety of other ingredients and is usually spicy. It’s typical in the northeastern region of China. Pao cai is non-compressed fermented cabbage with daikon, peppers, long beans, mustard stems, ginger, and sometimes other ingredients and is usually sweet. Pao cai, being a more broad category, is more common across China, especially in the north and the west. Suan cai is often eaten during breakfast with congee, a rice dish. I’ll likely be making a suan cai that is not so spicy.

April 18 2018

Bottle and Brew

 

Two of the 5 cultures were started using the OlyCultures brand kombucha starter. Pellicles never seemed to develop fully and cultures produced an abundance of settled yeast. I’ll be botting this batch, discarding the pellicles, and discontinuing this lineage of kombucha.

 

Real-time Notes for the 2 OlyCulture Half gallon Jars

1. Bottled the two half gallon jars which have the rubber airlocks in flip top bottles
   1. Rinsed bottles with tap water
   2. Filled bottles with boiling tap water
      1. Set aside with lids closed
      2. Poured out hot water after ~ 15 minutes
   3. Began bottling
      1. Used funnel with cheesecloth to minimize yeast. This will have minimized pellicle as well, which may be good or bad.
      2. Filled to the brim, except the last one, which was short ~5-6oz
      3. Labeled bottles. The bottles with possibly more yeasty portions, last liquid in brew vessel, are the ones that are not quite as full. I’m curious how they are for flavor and how they settle in the stomach.

 

Real-time Notes for the 3 cultures from Vlad

• Rinsed 4 half gallon jars with boiling water, 3 for new brews and one for a scoby hotel.
• Three new brews
  • 11.5g Encore Pu-erh Tea 2005 1st Grade (Light, clean, refreshing notes and complex.)
  • 11.5g Encore Pu-erh Tea 2013 Long Life. (Dark, thick, rich, and complex)
  • 11g Co-op Oolong (Light, smooth, not so complex) and 6g Star Anise (has a subtle sweet flavor ; Illicium verum, native to southwest China)
• Weighed tea and added to jars,
• Poured 5.5 cups of just under boiling water into each jar
• Each brew was started 5 minutes apart, 4:05pm, 4:10pm, and 4:15pm, respectively.
• Let each Encore tea brew for 30 minutes and brewed the Oolong for 45 as I felt the star anise could use more time to release it’s flavor.
• Each brew received sugar after the brew time, when tea leaves were removed. I forgot to check on my sugar reserves so each brew received slightly ratios and kinds.
  • Encore Pu-erh Tea 2005 1st Grade
    • 68g dextrose
    • 44g sucrose
  • Encore Pu-erh Tea 2013 Long Life
    • 68g dextrose
    • 26g sucrose
    • 18g muscavado (little to non-refined sugarcane derived sugar)
  • Co-op Oolong
    • 68g dextrose
    • ~41g raw local honey
      • Microbes in raw honey are said to negatively affect the kombucha symbiosis (by a random internet person) but I added the honey while the tea water was still relatively hot. I’ll keep an eye on this culture but I feel confident it will be better than alright.
• The jars are now cooling to room temperature for ~4 hours
• About four hours later I began processing the cultures from the starter supplied by Vlad.
  • Generation 1 (G1) Oolong and star anise was used to inoculate generation two (G2), freshly brewed oolong, star anise and sugar
  • G1 Encore 2012 Sheng supreme loose-leaf puer 50/50 dextrose/sucrose was used to inoculate G2 Encore Pu-erh Tea 2005 1st Grade
  • G1 Encore 2012 Sheng supreme loose-leaf puer 60/40 dextrose/sucrose was used to inoculate G2 Encore Pu-erh Tea 2013 Long Life
• Transfer of G1 to G2
  • I inoculated the second generation of cultures started from Vlad’s SCOBY and pellicle using ~1 cup of liquid SCOBY tea.
  • Pellicles were washed in a bowl of artesian well water
  • Newly grown pellicles, the ones that fit the jars perfectly, were passed onto the second generation
  • Excess pellicles were placed into a SCOBY hotel with some of the two G1 Encore SCOBY liquid, some artesian well water, and acetic acid (white vinegar). Water and acetic acid were used so that more of the kombucha tea could be used for bottling as some bottles were not completely full.
• Freshy bottled OlyCulture and G1 Vlad cultures were stored in heated brew area with freshly inoculated G2 Vlad cultures. Initial air temperature was 27.78℃.
• Empty jars and equipment were then cleaned, dried, and stored.

 

Future plans

• Secondary fermentation (bottle fermentation) will be allowed for several days before refrigeration. The goal being complete/near complete consumption of the sugar. Brew area air temperature goal is about 30℃.
• Active G2 cultures will be sampled periodically and bottled in the next 2-4 weeks