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Alcoholic drinks from Myanmar

Tar san ron (Mwim Chin red millet beer)

Tar san ron is the red millet beer of the Mwim, a Chin people of Mindat district in southern Chin State, Myanmar. Boiled millet is cooled on bamboo mats, sprinkled with a crushed household yeast cake and left in a clay pot under dry leaves for two weeks to a month. It is drunk from ox-horn or gourd cups, or through a filter straw from the pot.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Tar san ron itself.

DocumentedAlcoholic drinks16 days – 32 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedWhat goes in. No source gives amounts for this ferment.
red millet
Starterhousehold yeast cake of sticky rice, old yeast cake, herbs and spices

Total time across the recorded steps: 16 days – 32 days

Start
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What changes: Rice cakes seeded with old yeast rest under banana leaves, then dry white

Step 1 of 5
Make the yeast cake
Time
2 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Sticky rice is pounded with part of an older yeast cake, herbs and spices, shaped into cakes and sprinkled with more old yeast. Men may not touch the yeast.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Tar san ron is the red millet beer of the Mwim, a Chin people of Mindat district in southern Chin State, Myanmar. Boiled millet is cooled on bamboo mats, sprinkled with a crushed household yeast cake and left in a clay pot under dry leaves for two weeks to a month. It is drunk from ox-horn or gourd cups, or through a filter straw from the pot. Made in 5 steps over 16 days – 32 days. The longest step, ferment in a clay pot covered with dry banana, mango or custard-apple leaves, takes 14–30 days (Cornell M. 2022).

Key numbers
Main step14–30 daysReported[s1]Ferment in a clay pot covered with dry banana, mango or custard-apple leaves

What makes this one different

It is brewed from red millet, chosen for its flavour and because the beer stays fresh longer than one made from other grains, and households keep their own yeast lines.

Related ferments

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Men are not allowed to touch the yeast. In the past each household made its own yeast cake; today brewers swap yeasts with neighbours.

  1. [s1] Cornell M. 2022, Traditional brewing in Myanmar: an amazing heritage (review of Corbin 2022), Zythophile, https://zythophile.co.uk/2022/02/21/traditional-brewing-in-myanmar-an-amazing-heritage (read via Wayback Machine)web