This is the ginger beer families all over New Zealand used to brew at home.
If you remember, many folks used to have a ‘bug’ or a ‘plant’ that they used to ferment home-made ginger beer. It had a distinctive ‘brewed’ taste and had a reputation for being volatile.
We started bottling Hakanoa ginger beers back in 2009, using the traditional method. That was after a lot of experimentation. Unfortunately they had a reputation for being volatile too. We eventually came to the conclusion that volatile ginger beer was an unworkable business model for our locale. So we did a lot more experimenting and made it shelf-stable. It took us ages to get it to taste as good as the volatile stuff, but we got there in 2015. We’re always experimenting and improving our work, but our signature flavour is still the traditional ginger beer we drank as kids.
Chai Latte the way it’s meant to be.
Hakanoa Chai Syrups are fresh spice and organic black tea concentrates designed to be mixed with hot milk to make a Chai Latte.
They also work with soy milk, most nut milks and are divine with coconut drinking milk. They can also be diluted with hot water to make a Chai Tea.
Our SPICY CHAI is the result of a collaboration between Rebekah and Helen Ollivier, the barista who runs her Aotea Coffee Stand every Saturday at the Britomart Market. Helen tasted 9 variants on Rebekah’s recipe before she and Rebekah were fully satisfied with the results.
The blend of fresh spices, organic black tea and a modest amount of organic raw sugar is based on a traditional Rajasthani recipe that Rebekah learned as a teenager. Fresh root ginger, cinnamon quills, green cardamom pods, black peppercorns and cloves are simmered and steeped for hours before being carefully filtered. There is a lovely balance of spice flavour with a lingering warm finish from the ginger and pepper.
THINKING ABOUT STARTING YOUR OWN FOOD BUSINESS?
THIS IS EVERYTHING WE WISH WE’D KNOWN WHEN WE STARTED!
