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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks from West/Central/East Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Pacific, Latin America, North Africa

Palm wine (base flow)ထန်းရည်

milky, effervescent, sweet-to-sour wine ~3–7 % ABV. Made in 5 steps over 29 days – 48 days. The longest step, acetic stage (if left), takes 28–42 days (Nyein Nyein Khaing 2020). Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step28–42 daysMeasured[nnk2020]Acetic stage (if left)
AciditypH 5.5 → 3.93Measured[nnk2020]Continued fermentation

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedWhat goes in. No source gives amounts for this ferment.
palm sap: coconut, palmyra (Borassus), date, oil palm, raffia, kithul, nipa, kaong or Hyphaene
Starter: spontaneous (airborne and container-residue yeasts) — back-slop through reused containers

Total time across the recorded steps: 29 days – 48 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
pH 6.6–7.4

What changes: Sap drips from the cut flower stalk into a collecting pot

Step 1 of 5
Tap sap
Time
Tapped twice a day, morning and evening
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
pH 6.6–7.4
Reported
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Zymomonas mobilis
Leuconostoc
Pediococcus lactic
Yeasts

Output: fresh sweet sap.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

fermentation starts in the collection pot

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

Variants

  • Toddy / kallu (India)coconut or palmyra; toddy shops; drink ~1 day after tapping (WP)
  • Htan ye (Myanmar)Borassus flabellifer sap tapped by climbers. In a Taungtha study alcohol peaked at 8.6 % on day 6. Sweet toddy (ထန်းရည်ချို) and bitter, fermented toddy (ထန်းရည်ခါး) are the two named forms; the sap is also boiled to jaggery or distilled to htan aye.
  • Tubâ (Philippines)Coconut sap; Visayan tubâ is coloured red-brown with mangrove bark. A University of the Philippines study found a mean of 8.79 % v/v. Distilled into lambanog; see the bahalina and lambanog entries.
  • Tuak (Batak, Sumatra)Sugar palm (Arenga) sap with raru bark; now a full entry, tuak-batak.
  • Emu / mmanya ngwo / ogogoro (Nigeria)oil palm (emu) vs raffia (ngwo); ogogoro distilled (WP)
  • Nsafufuo / doka (Ghana)Felled oil palm, tapped for 5 weeks. pH 3.5–4.0 during tapping; alcohol 1.4–2.82 % within the day, 3.24–4.75 % overnight and above 7.0 % after 24 h. Distilled to akpeteshi.
  • Mnazi (Kenya coast)coconut (WP)
  • Lagmi (Tunisia, Libya, Algeria)date palm sap (WP)
  • Bandji (Côte d'Ivoire, Mali)(WP)
  • Rā / kithul toddy (Sri Lanka)coconut, palmyra, kithul (Caryota urens); arrack distilled (WP)
  • Vino de coyol (Central America, Mexico)Acrocomia palm felled, trough cut in trunk, sap collected days to weeks (typical)
  • Chilean palm (Jubaea)historic wine; now mainly palm honey (WP)
  • Kao (Tuvalu)Sour, fermented toddy. Kaleve is the fresh, unfermented sap.
  • Kamanging (Kiribati)The fermented drink; karewe is the fresh sap.

Made the palm wine way

Safety

Neera is sap kept unfermented by liming the collecting pot, so it has no alcohol. Bottled palm wine has been preserved by heating to 70 °C for 30 min with sodium metabisulphite; Byssochlamys moulds can spoil bottled raffia wine.

History and sources

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

In 1942 India, tari (palm toddy) came from coconut, sago, palmyra and date palms; Orissa drew it only from date palms (3,054 trees tapped), and Assam exempted unfermented tari from excise.

  1. [wp-palm-wine] Wikipedia, Palm wine (outline only)wiki
  2. [tamang2016] Tamang, Watanabe, Holzapfel, "Review: Diversity of Microorganisms in Global Fermented Foods and Beverages", Front. Microbiol. 7:377, 2016paper
  3. [nnk2020] Nyein Nyein Khaing 2020, Preparation and characterization of toddy palm wine and vinegar, University of Mandalay Research Journal 11:213–219paper
  4. [munchies-toddy] Vice/Munchies Myanmar toddy https://munchies.vice.com/articles/climb-a-palm-tree-if-you-want-to-get-drunk-in-myanmarweb
  5. [oluwole2023] Oluwole O. et al. 2023, Fermented traditional wine from palm trees: microbial, nutritional attributes and health impacts, Frontiers in Food Science and Technology 3:1225762paper
  6. [amoa-awua2007] Amoa-Awua W.K., Sampson E., Tano-Debrah K. 2007, Growth of yeasts, lactic and acetic acid bacteria in palm wine during tapping and fermentation from felled oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) in Ghana, Journal of Applied Microbiology 102:599–606paper
  7. [sansanmyint2003] San San Myint 2003, PhD thesis, University of Yangon (yeast isolated from toddy)paper
  8. [chopra1942] Chopra R.N., Chopra G.S., Chopra I.C. 1942, Alcoholic beverages in India, Part II, Indian Medical Gazette 77(5):290–296archive