Shoti and the tone oven

Shoti is Kakhetian bread shaped for a tone oven, a clay cylinder set into the floor. Its crescent form has one thick side and one thin side.

The tone shapes the loaf

Georgia Travel describes a base-free terracotta oven. Bakers heat the wall with twigs and vine branches, then press shaped dough against the hot surface. The shoti page describes holiday dough started with a leavening starter the day before baking.

Ask about flour

The wheat page names macha and Persian wheat among Georgia’s local varieties. The source distinguishes eastern tone baking from western bread cooked on a ketsi pan.

The first-loaf custom appears in the wheat page: families kept the first bread for a guest or for the end of the day. At a Kakhetian supra, bread and wine arrive first and the loaf is torn by hand.

• Ask whether the loaf came from a tone or a pan.
• Ask which wheat the baker used.
• Notice the thick and thin sides of the crescent.

Compare mchadi and ghomi