Our first beetroot kvass · A fermentation afternoon with Matilda

Last weekend we sat in on a fermentation session led by Matilda. Two hours later we walked out having made our very first beetroot kvass — and carrying something harder to bottle: the calm that comes from watching someone teach a craft they've lived with for twenty years.

The way she shared her wisdom was so simple. Nothing she said was complicated. There was no jargon, no gatekeeping, no long list of equipment to buy first — just two decades of patient practice, handed over plainly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And in her hands, it was.

The fermentation class gathered around the counter, watching Matilda demonstrate — Gathered round the counter as a ferment comes together.

A drink from almost nothing

What amazed us most was how little it takes. A few litres of water. Salt. A little sugar. Some pepper. Beetroot. That's most of it. From those humble ingredients — and a stretch of quiet, patient time — comes a genuinely amazing drink.

What it actually takes

A few litres of water — the base of the whole thing.
Salt, a little sugar, a little pepper — the smallest cast of ingredients.
Beetroot — for our first jar, deep and earthy.
Jugs and bottles — somewhere for it to live while it works.
Patience — the one ingredient you can't buy. Time does the real work.

Nothing on this list is complicated. All it really needs is presence of mind — and the willingness to just do it.

We had always assumed fermentation was a fussy, expert-only art. Matilda quietly dismantled that. The lesson underneath the recipe was the bigger takeaway: you don't need to be an expert to begin. You need a jar, a little salt, some patience, and the nerve to start.

"You don't need twenty years of practice to start — you need one jar, a little salt, and the nerve to begin today."

Two hours that flew

We came expecting a class. We got an afternoon that disappeared. Two hours went by without our noticing — the sign of a good teacher and a subject that keeps opening up the longer you look at it. We left with a jar quietly beginning its work, and a small new confidence that we could do this again on our own.

From the afternoon

The full fermentation class behind a table crowded with jars of ferment

The class gathered in front of the chalkboard and the fermentation flavour wheel

The class leaning in together behind a table of ferments

Matilda at the counter beside a chalkboard mapping salty, sweet, bitter and astringent

The class outside holding the ferments they made

Everyone outside with their jars and bottles after the class

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The full album — more frames from the class.

A note of thanks Massive thank you, Matilda — for two decades of wisdom shared so simply, for two hours that flew, and for our first beetroot kvass. And thanks to Coffee Ideas for making room for classes like this. Now — to find the patience, and the water jugs.