The flavor profiles of modern sodas copy older lightly fermented drinks, borrowing sourness from lactobacillus, and carbonation from yeast. I appreciate how fermenting a drink warps my sense of time. I taste it developing each day, from delicious to more delicious. I appreciate the scariness of not knowing how it will turn out, of making sure it doesn’t over-pressurize on a warm day, of knowing it is alive.
Yesterday, I started brewing a vibrantly red hibiscus drink from a ginger culture, and I’m already marveling at the taste. I want to share it with you. I don’t want to put you in the awkward position of saying no you don’t want it. I thought about how we live so close by I could leave it for you at an appropriate social distance, and how we could each wash the bottle and our hands. I thought about how we live so far away, how I couldn’t mail it because it might over-pressurize, but I could share a recipe, how then you’d get to experience the whole process.
I admitted my fear of offering it to you so that you might feel less afraid of asking. I’m trying to accept the leftover scariness, that you might not ask, by reminding myself that I appreciate the scariness of fermenting cultures.