Fresh from the Farm
A World of Ingredients
We live in an age in which the myriad tastes of the world are within arms reach. Nearly anything can be ordered and delivered without much effort from the consumer. This ease with which things are attained belies the human energy that goes into the process– and looking a little closer reveals an entire substrata of microbial life and mycelium stitching together the very soil from which all things grow and derive nutrients. It is wild to think about the whole tenuous process of life and balance that nature has so perfectly designed.
It is a lesson I learned while working on an organic farm, that perhaps the first step in moving from mere consumer to participant is a recognition of the transfer of energy– the old “blood, sweat, and tears.” There is more that goes into this stuff than meets the eye. With so much available to us, sometimes it’s good to take a moment of appreciation– for the local things that grow around you, to participate in the thread of life– to thank a farmer, a harvester, a truck driver, or a dock worker, order pickers, the answerers of emails and delivery people– the whole network of human energy that allows us to bring you Green Tea Mango, Peach Tulsi, Mint Verbena, Madagascar Vanilla, or Tropical Chai.
This week we have a particularly lovely Farm Fresh Mint + Ginger Water Kefir using fresh Apple Mint from our friends at Foot of the Mountain Farm. You can find their produce, baked goods and sourdough bread Wednesday evenings at Farmers on the Square (Carlisle), Saturday mornings at North Square market (Chambersburg), and Adams County market (Gettysburg). Thank you, guys, for all the care and energy you put into sustaining the community. It is appreciated.
Apple Mint is so called because it hints at a tart green apple, so it adds a delicious bite to the kefir. Super refreshing on a hot July day. If you’re an ice cream fan, don’t forget about floats. A scoop of vanilla with Orange Creamsicle, Concord Crush, or Vanilla kombucha is good for what ails you. My sister-in-law is making some kombucha popsicles for the kids too. I’ll let you know how they turn out.
In a world of ingredients, feel free to try things that might be outside your comfort zone. We have a whole room of teas, herbs, roots, and flowers– and whether the mint comes from Morocco or up the road, it’s worth trying– for what it is, for what it becomes when it’s mixed with our ferments, for its supportive aspects, for its flavor, for what it gives us, and for the energy that it took to make it to your glass.
I’d encourage you to try anything new, anything you don’t recognize, anything you can’t pronounce. Take a sample and ask about it. With every ingredient I research, I am left astounded by some info buried on page 7 of a study, or how some herb was used in the past, or what benefits might be available to us, and what all these ingredients reveal to us upon closer inspection.
It has been my experience that we can form relationships with ingredients. Some are lasting, others are only for a season. Whether it’s Chamomile, Chaga, Tulsi, Rhodiola Rosea, etc. I can tell you where we met and what I learned from them and what I learned about myself along the way. It might even be true that we are closer than we thought to our ingredients, that the old adage was right– we are what we eat, and how wild is that?
~Adam (The Brewer)