Unified Ferments Kettl Collaboration Hojicha 750ml

USA : NEW YORK : BROOKLYN

Jou Yanagi Houjicha — Ryuouen, Uji

MED-BODIED, ROASTED CHESTNUT, PINE, SALINE, CACAO

Unified Ferments is a Brooklyn-based producer of fermented teas founded in 2019 by Graham Pirtle and Young Stowe, two beverage industry veterans who spent years curating tea-based cocktail omakases before channeling that fluency into something new. Each bottle is built around a single-origin tea — fermented the way a natural winemaker ferments fruit, with house cultures and minimal intervention — and designed for a wine glass, not a can.

This bottling is built on Jou Yanagi Houjicha from Ryuouen, a Kyoto-based tea shop founded in 1875 that sources exclusively from small farmers in Uji. Kettl — a Brooklyn-based Japanese tea importer with shops in Greenpoint and Los Angeles — is Ryuouen's only purveyor outside Japan. Late-harvest bancha, drum-roasted until deep brown over charcoal, yields a tea that smolders with soft smokiness and a maritime salinity the fermentation draws out and amplifies.

PAIRINGS :

NON-ALCOHOLIC. <0.5% ABV