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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks from South and Southeast Asia

Palm wine, Asian regional names (toddy, raa, kallu, tua, tuhak)ទឹកត្នោតជូរ

Across South and Southeast Asia the sap of coconut, palmyra and sugar palms is tapped from the flower stalk and left to ferment on its own into a mild, sour, fizzy toddy. This entry gathers the regional names for that one process and the few ways the regions differ. Coconut sap left at room temperature turns from neutral to sour within half a day. Made in 3 steps over 5.5 days. The longest step, keep it, and it turns to vinegar, takes 5 days (Gopal M 2021). Leuconostoc mesenteroides, dominant in fresh coconut sap and Yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe) in Indian toddy do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step5 daysReported[gopal2021]Keep it, and it turns to vinegar
AciditypH 7.2 → 4.5Measured[gopal2021]Let the sap ferment on its own

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedHousehold tapping with no fixed amounts. One Maldivian tapper still working in 2019 collected only a couple of litres a day from two trees.
Fresh palm sap (neera) · Collected from the cut flower stalk into an open pot[gopal2021][edition2019]
No starter · Microbes come from the sap, the pot and the air[gopal2021]
Starter: spontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 5.5 days

Start
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What changes: Sap drips from the cut flower stalk into a pot hung in the palm

Step 1 of 3
Tap the flower stalk and hang a pot
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Gluconobacter triples
Acetic acid bacteria

Output: sweet palm sap (neera).

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

The process is the base palm-wine flow. What differs between regions is the palm (coconut, palmyra, sugar palm or fishtail palm), the local name, and what is added or made from the sap.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tek tnaot chu (Cambodia)"Sour palm water", fermented palmyra sap.
  • Raa (Maldives; also dhoaraa, rukuraa, meeraa)Coconut toddy collected by tappers called raiveriya, a craft passed from father to son and now rare. The sap is also boiled into a syrup, dhiyaa hakuru, and soured toddy is used as vinegar.
  • Panam kallu (Sri Lanka and South India, Tamil)Palmyra (panai) toddy; the Sinhala name is rā.
  • Nareli (India)Sweet, milky, fizzy coconut palm wine.
  • Tua mutin (Timor-Leste)"White tua"; the distilled spirit is tua sabu.
  • Tuhak or tubâ sa hidikup (Philippines, Caraga)Kaong (Arenga) palm sap; lamud bark is sometimes added to help fermentation and stop souring. Called hidikup or hidiup in Agusan del Norte and san in Agusan del Sur.
  • Tunggang (Philippines)Fishtail palm (Caryota) sap, made by the Manobo, Mandaya and Mamanwa.

Safety

Toddy sours fast and is drunk fresh. Open pots let insects and other contaminants in, which is why newer closed, chilled collectors were developed for coconut sap.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

A 1942 survey of Indian excise records found tari (toddy) drunk across much of British India. In the Madras Presidency it was drawn from coconut, sago, palmyra and date palms, and in most areas it had replaced the older grain beers.

  1. [gopal2021] Gopal M., Shil S., Gupta A., Hebbar K.B., Arivalagan M. 2021, Metagenomic investigation uncovers presence of probiotic-type microbiome in Kalparasa (fresh unfermented coconut inflorescence sap), Frontiers in Microbiology 12:662783paper
  2. [tamang2016] Tamang J.P., Watanabe K., Holzapfel W.H. 2016, Review: Diversity of microorganisms in global fermented foods and beverages, Frontiers in Microbiology 7:377 (toddy microbes citing Shamala and Sreekantiah 1988)paper
  3. [chopra1942] Chopra R.N., Chopra G.S., Chopra I.C. 1942, Alcoholic beverages in India, Part II, Indian Medical Gazette 77(5):290–296archive
  4. [edition2019] Munavvar R. 2019, Toddy, coconut honey and palm trees, a Maldivian love story, The Edition (Maldives), 2 January 2019web
  5. [FERMDB] FermDB (Bokulich lab, ETH Zurich), FermDB_data.tsv, row Nareli (citing Tamang J.P. et al. 2020, Compr. Rev. Food Sci. Food Saf. 19:184–217)web
  6. [WP:Palm wine] Wikipedia, Palm wine, names table (outline only)wiki
  7. [WP:Tubâ] Wikipedia, Tubâ (outline only)wiki