Glossary
Brewing
The process of preparing a beverage by steeping, boiling, or fermenting raw ingredients in water. Used loosely for tea/coffee infusion and strictly for beer/sake/makgeolli production.
The word covers two different kitchens. Tea brewing and coffee brewing mean steeping leaves or ground beans in hot water — a 1–10 minute process driven by water temperature and time. Beer brewing and sake brewing mean a multi-week production cycle including malting, mashing, boiling, and fermentation — a different scale of process entirely.
The shared root is “to make hot” (Old English brēowan). Both senses involve heat as a tool, but only the alcoholic kind involves living biology. The English language hasn’t separated them; most other languages have (Korean yangjo for alcohol, ureonaegi for tea steeping).