Sugarcane Juice

Sugarcane was already being grown for its juice across South and Southeast Asia for centuries before it was processed into crystallised sugar, which is the older use of the plant ¹. The food historian Richard Foss traces India's documented relationship with cane back further still: citing the Indian historian Ziauddin Barani, Foss notes that a 1316 decree by a Delhi sultan banning the distillation of sugarcane spirit is itself evidence the practice (and by extension cane processing more broadly) was established well before that date, since a ruler generally only outlaws something already in use ².

Fresh-pressed juice rather than the crystallised product remains the more common street drink across much of the region today, sold from cane presses in India, Pakistan and neighbouring countries, typically finished with lime and sometimes ginger ¹. The practice is not confined to South Asia: an inscription from 9th-century Java records a sweet drink called Nalaka Rasa, "sugarcane juice," suggesting the same fresh-pressed tradition took hold independently across the cane-growing regions of Southeast Asia at a comparably early date ¹. Regional versions today vary in what is added at the press: lime and ginger in India, lime or pineapple in Brazil, where the drink is called caldo de cana or garapa, and salted lime in Vietnam ¹. Pakistan declared sugarcane juice its national drink in 2019 ¹.