Boza: A lactic acid fermented cereal beverage as a traditional Turkish food

Consumption of lactic acid fermented foods is common in many mid-Asian, Middle East, and African countries. These products have many advantages such as destroying undesirable factors in the raw products, reducing the volume of the material, and providing a safer product. Besides improving organoleptic quality by fermentation, they are also superior in digestibility and nutritive value compared to their unfermented counterparts.

Boza is a traditional Turkish beverage made by yeast and lactic acid bacteria fermentation of millet, cooked maize, wheat, or rice semolina/flour. The name, boza, in Turkish comes from the Persian word, buze, meaning millet. However, the Turks who lived in Middle Asia called this beverage bassoi. There are also similar beverages produced in East European countries (braga or brascha), the Balkans (busa), and Egypt (bouza). In the past, boza has been produced and consumed with slight differences in the recipe in the Turkish countries. Boza is made of various kinds of cereals (usually millet, maize, and wheat), but boza of the best quality and taste is made of millet flour. In the Balkans, such as Bulgaria, cocoa is also included in the boza recipe. Boza produced in Egypt has high alcohol content (up to 7% by volume) and is consumed as beer. Because of its lactic acid, fat, protein, carbohydrate, and fiber contents, it is a valuable fermented food that contributes to human nutrition.