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Soy and legumes from Java, Indonesia

Non-soy legume tempe (benguk, koro and other local beans)tempe benguk

In Java tempe is also made from local beans such as velvet bean (koro benguk) and jack bean. These beans carry natural toxins. In two lab studies they are soaked and boiled twice, dehulled or sliced, and soaked for a day with the water changed before the usual tempe mould goes in. Wrapped in plastic or leaves and kept at about 30 °C, they set into a cake in one to three days.

Fully documentedSoy and legumes3 days – 5.1 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceLaboratory recipes from two Indonesian studies (Astawan et al. 2024 for velvet bean, Agustia et al. 2025 for jack bean). Village makers use no fixed amounts.
Velvet beans or jack beansVelvet bean seeds from Yogyakarta; jack bean seeds from Wonogiri, Central Java, in the two studies[astawan2024][agustia2025]
Tempe starter (Rhizopus oligosporus)0.2 %A commercial starter (Raprima); the amount is from the jack bean study[agustia2025][astawan2024]
Plastic, banana leaf or teak leafFor wrapping the cakes[agustia2025]
Startertempe starter (commercial Rhizopus oligosporus)

Total time across the recorded steps: 3 days – 5.1 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
Close-up: water moving into a bean

What changes: The hard beans soak in water for a day

Step 1 of 6
Soak the beans
Time
24 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Rhizopus mycelium

Output: swollen beans.

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

In Java tempe is also made from local beans such as velvet bean (koro benguk) and jack bean. These beans carry natural toxins. In two lab studies they are soaked and boiled twice, dehulled or sliced, and soaked for a day with the water changed before the usual tempe mould goes in. Wrapped in plastic or leaves and kept at about 30 °C, they set into a cake in one to three days. Made in 6 steps over 3 days – 5.1 days. The longest step, let the mould bind the cake, takes 24 h – 3 days (Agustia F.C 2025) and runs at 30 °C (Agustia F.C 2025). Rhizopus oligosporus does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 h – 3 daysReported[agustia2025]Let the mould bind the cake
Temperature30 °CReported[agustia2025]Let the mould bind the cake

What makes this one different

Soybean tempe needs one soak and one boil. In the studies here velvet and jack beans are soaked twice and boiled twice, and the jack bean sprouts are sliced. These beans carry toxins such as HCN, which the jack bean study found fell through these steps and fermentation together.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Soy and velvet bean tempeSoybeans mixed with velvet beans before inoculation.
  • Germinated bean tempeBeans sprouted first (velvet bean about 24 h; jack bean 60 h). Sprouted velvet beans made a softer cake. The jack bean study above used sprouts.

Safety

These beans are toxic if they are not prepared well, and the velvet bean study here reports no toxin measure. Raw velvet beans are not safe to eat. They hold L-DOPA, a Parkinson's disease drug, and the hallucinogen dimethyltryptamine, which are only lowered by roasting, drying or cooking in water that is thrown away repeatedly; boiling still leaves about 1.5 % L-DOPA [rijntjes2019]. Badly processed seeds have caused mass psychosis, severe vomiting, confusion and coma [rijntjes2019, cilia2026]. People on Parkinson's drugs should ask their neurologist before eating it [cilia2026]. In one study, soaking, boiling and 72 h of fermentation cut the HCN of jack bean sprouts by about 91 %, to about 0.8 ppm (Agustia 2025). The authors call that safe against the 10 ppm Codex limit they cite, but HCN is the only toxin they measured, so it does not show that jack bean tempe is safe. These steps cover velvet and jack bean only. Never make this from coconut press cake, which can carry bongkrekic acid, a heat-stable toxin that can be fatal [anwar2017].

Hazards the sources name: L-DOPA and the hallucinogen dimethyltryptamine in velvet bean seed; boiling still leaves about 1.5 % L-DOPA; HCN in jack bean sprouts, 9.62 ppm before soaking, boiling and fermentation.

History and sources

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

By the mid-1970s tempe was being made from at least 17 local seeds and press cakes (Shurtleff and Aoyagi). Studies of velvet bean and jack bean tempe now look at them as local substitutes for imported soybeans.

  1. [astawan2024] Astawan M., Prayudani A.P.G., Haekal M., Wresdiyati T., Sardjono R.E. 2024, Germination effects on the physicochemical properties and sensory profiles of velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) and soybean tempe, Frontiers in Nutrition 11:1383841paper
  2. [agustia2025] Agustia F.C., Winarsi H., Fitriani A., Latifasari N. 2025, Impact of packaging variations on the amino acid profile, proximate content, and antinutritional components of tempeh from jack bean sprouts, Preventive Nutrition and Food Science 30(1):56paper
  3. [SIC-tempeh] Shurtleff W., Aoyagi A., History of Tempeh, SoyInfo Centerbook
  4. [rijntjes2019] Rijntjes M. 2019, Knowing your beans in Parkinson's disease, a critical assessment of current knowledge about different beans and their compounds, Parkinson's Disease 2019:1349509paper
  5. [cilia2026] Cilia R., Katzenschlager R. 2026, To bean or not to bean, advice to people with Parkinson in my clinic about Mucuna pruriens, Journal of Parkinson's Disease 16(4):788–794paper
  6. [anwar2017] Anwar M., Kasper A., Steck A.R., Schier J.G. 2017, Bongkrekic acid, a review of a lesser-known mitochondrial toxin, Journal of Medical Toxicology 13(2):173–179paper