Brewing is an important technique in cookery and involves boiling or simmering. Tea, coffee, and soy sauce are brewed. Soy sauce, as a product of fermentation, may also be regarded as an alcoholic beverage. Used in this sense, the term brewing is normally used of liquids — when other types of food are boiled or simmered the term stewing is more likely to be used instead.
The term brewing is also used to describe stewing herbs, especially medicinal herbs) and potions, and it is often employed in legend and fiction, especially fantasy, for example a "witches' brew".
