text: In Northern Thailand, a pickled tea product called miang () is chewed as a stimulant. Steamed tea leaves are kept pressed into sealed bamboo baskets until the anaerobic fermentation produces a compact cake with the desired flavor. The fermentation takes four to seven days for young leaves and about a year for mature leaves. Miang is related to the Thai and Lao street snack miang kham.
  Pickled tea known as lahpet is widely consumed in Burmese cuisine, and plays an important role in Burmese ritual culture. After fermentation, the tea is eaten as a vegetable.
  A similar pickled tea is eaten by the Blang people of Xishuangbanna in Yunnan, China, on the border with Myanmar and Laos. The tea, known locally as miam and in Chinese as  (), is first packed into bamboo tubes, then buried and allowed to ferment before eating.
  Production
  During fermentation, the yeast in the mixture converts sugar to alcohol. But then, bacteria take over and convert that alcohol into acetic acid (vinegar) which is what gives kombucha its tangy taste. However, some residual alcohol can be left behind. In commercially produced kombucha, the amount is very low, typically less than 0.5% alcohol by volume - which means it can be labelled as non-alcoholic. But homemade kombucha, or kombucha that's fermented for a longer time, can have slightly higher traces of alcohol.