By Porter Lang
Start with the kit. A crusher. A furnace fed with dried cane waste. A wide pan. A rotating wheel to stir. A square pit, cemented, about 9.5 feet on a side. Then cloth-lined moulds. That is the equipment list given by Upper Crust, an Indian food magazine, for a gurhal, the local word for a jaggery unit near Kolhapur in Maharashtra.
What jaggery is
Wikipedia calls jaggery a traditional, unrefined, non-centrifugal cane sugar. The cane juice is concentrated without separating molasses from crystals. The colour runs from golden to dark brown. The article says it is very similar to muscovado, and that the name comes from Portuguese forms borrowed from Tamil or Malayalam, tracing back to Sanskrit sharkara, which makes it a doublet of “sugar”. Its regional names include gur, gud, bellam and vellam.
The general method
Wikipedia gives seven steps. Cane is cleaned and crushed, traditionally by ox-powered crushers and now by power-driven ones set up in the fields. Part of the juice goes into a furnace for about an hour, with dried cane pulp as fuel. Lime is added during boiling and impurities rise as froth to be skimmed. The juice reduces to about a third of its volume at about 200 °C. It is stirred and tested by lifting it on a spatula to see whether it threads or drips, then poured as a thin layer into a shallow flat pan to cool, and moulded into blocks or cubes while soft. The article adds that dark brown jaggery is boiled in a large cast-iron pan with a small amount of mustard or castor oil to reduce frothing.
The season
Upper Crust says the Kolhapur season runs from November to February and that the area has roughly 600 to 700 units. Wikipedia’s article on jaggery gives no season, though it links jaggery to harvest festivals such as Makar Sankranti and Pongal. The GI application for Kolhapur jaggery says the crop is cut once it has fully developed, about a year after sowing, and that watering stops 15 days before cutting.
In a Kolhapur unit
Upper Crust describes the work as a rhythm. A small electric crusher extracts the juice. A furnace called a chulwan, fuelled by dried bagasse, heats it, and a rotating wheel called a rahat stirs the boiling juice. A steel vessel called a kaahil, holding 300 kilos, carries the hot gur to the pit. Wooden spades stir it for about 15 minutes until it turns sticky, like gooey toffee, and a flat spoon fills the moulds.
How does anyone know when it is ready? According to Upper Crust, a master-taster drops a little boiling gur into cold water and rolls it into a ball. If it holds, it is done. Some of the liquid is bottled separately as kakvi, a honey-like product.
The moulds are lined with cloth and come in 1, 2, 10 and 30 kilo sizes. Wikipedia’s Kolhapur article gives the common block as 1 kg, called a dhep. Upper Crust says each two-hour session yields about two quintals, that sessions run five times a day from 4 pm into the early morning, and that a typical unit makes about 10 quintals a day.
Colour, and what it means
The sources disagree about what the colour tells you.
- Upper Crust: lighter gur is generally considered higher quality, and darker gur is purified with juice from the bhendi tree.
- Wikipedia’s jaggery article: dark brown suggests the juice was not clarified, and golden-yellow jaggery is produced by clarifying, which the article says strips nutrients. It also says coloured adulterants are sometimes added to imitate a golden colour, and it marks that claim as unsourced.
- The GI application: Kolhapur jaggery is white to golden or reddish-brown.
So: lighter is better in one account, darker is less clarified in another, and the application allows white to reddish-brown. Our reading: colour alone is a poor guide to quality. That is our inference, and no source says it.
What the GI documents say about additives
The Wikipedia article on Kolhapur jaggery says no additives are used and traditional production is organic. The application, a primary document filed in 2011 by the Kolhapur Agricultural Produce Market Committee, says no added colour, preservatives, additives or flavours are used. The same application’s process steps list calcium carbonate with ladyfinger powder, dilute phosphoric acid, and edible oil during boiling. It lists preservatives for the liquid form. The application scan is partly garbled, so we give no figures from it. We show the two statements side by side and do not reconcile them. Upper Crust names bhendi tree juice as the only plant additive.
GI dates
Wikipedia’s Kolhapur article gives two dates for the GI: 31 March 2014 and 2021. It also says the tag was the first for any jaggery from Maharashtra and that Kolhapur jaggery is the most exported jaggery variety from India. The application is dated 7 July 2011 and says the GI covers the whole of Kolhapur district. A third site, Vikaspedia, an Indian agriculture knowledge portal, gave only a summary: golden-yellow colour and a traditional method, with no date.
Other regions
Wikipedia says Maharashtra is the largest producer and consumer, that Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh is said to have the largest jaggery market in the world, and that Mandya in Karnataka and Anakapalle in Andhra Pradesh are also named. Muzaffarnagar jaggery has a GI, and so do Central Travancore and Marayoor jaggery in Kerala. The article also describes palm and date versions made from sap.
Storage
The application says jaggery is long-lasting when made from mature cane, and that powder keeps longer than solid blocks. Wikipedia’s articles do not cover storage. We give no timings.
Dates in order
- 7 July 2011: Kolhapur jaggery GI application, according to the application.
- 31 March 2014 or 2021: GI granted, according to Wikipedia, which gives both.
- November to February: Kolhapur crushing season, according to Upper Crust.
Side by side
Wikipedia and Upper Crust agree on the main loop: crush, boil, skim, stir, mould. They differ on colour. The application adds steps the others leave out.
What kind of sources these are
Two Wikipedia articles; a food magazine’s feature (an older page on its archive site); an agriculture knowledge portal; and a primary application document with an imperfect scan.
What we left out
Health and nutrition claims, medicinal uses, prices, firm names, the artisans’ names, and the application’s dosage figures.
Quick answers
When is Kolhapur’s jaggery season? According to Upper Crust, a food magazine, November to February. Wikipedia’s jaggery article gives no season.
Does Kolhapur jaggery have a GI tag? Yes. Wikipedia says it was the first Maharashtra jaggery to receive one, but gives both 2014 and 2021 as the date.
How do makers know when gur is ready? Upper Crust says a master-taster drops a little into cold water and rolls it into a ball. If it holds its shape, it is ready.
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