Compost Tea vs. Compost Extract

I was at Construction Junction (A Brett-Approved reuse store  in Pittsburgh) the other day and saw they had big burlap sacks for only $1.50. It was like the universe telling me to get off my duff and get to making some compost tea because making compost tea is what you have to do when you are trying to use 1st year soil to produce for a market garden. So, I got my burlap bags, took them up to the farm, grabbed one garden fork full of chicken poop & hay-aged compost (aged means it had already peaked, plateaued and fallen off of 150 degrees F), placed it in the sack, and put the sack in a tub full of water and went about doing other chores.

I came back an hour or so later and the tub was daaaark brown. Darker brown then I thought it was going to be.  I figured I'd leached enough compost goodness out of the mix and now just had to get it into the soil that was about to be seeded in the next week or two. As I was spreading the goodness I got to wondering if what I had was technically 'Compost Tea.'  Turns out it was not, it was something between 'Compost Leachate' and 'Compost Extract'.   Compost Tea would have required a 3-day steeping period, an oxygenation source like an aquarium pump and air stones, and a food source like molasses for the microbes to eat as they multiplied. What I spread today was still good for the soil but it wasn't as crazy good as compost tea. Here is an AWESOME paper that covers more than you ever wanted to know about the liquid gold, Compost Tea.