Taal-er Gur: Bengal’s Sweet Summer Secret
Photo Credits: amar khamar
In traditional Indian food systems, jaggery is a sweetener with a set functional role tied to seasonal and bodily needs. Typically produced from sugarcane and consumed in winter months, gur is considered to have a warming effect on the body. However, like all foods & ingredients, it is not monolithic. Across India, in states like West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu jaggery has also been made from the sap of the palmyra tree (Borassus flabellifer). Locally known as taal, taadi, or panai, it is, interestingly, harvested and consumed during the summer months.
The tree that inspired Tagore
The philosophy of zero-waste is prominent in West Bengal’s culture, as it is in food traditions shaped by famine, partition, and scarcity. There is a long-standing practice of making do with what is available and this ingenuity is seen in a cuisine that creatively uses scraps, peels, and foraged ingredients. Within this cultural context, the idea of extracting jaggery from tree sap (not just sugarcane) makes perfect sense.
Traditionally, jaggery can be made from the sap of many plants and the palmyra palm has held a special place in Bengali imagination for quite some time now. Immortalised most famously by Rabindranath Tagore in a nursery rhyme, "Tal gachh ek paye darie…" (“The palmyra tree stands on one leg…”), the palmyra palm bears its fruit, taal, during the summer and monsoon months, and it is this fruit that most people associate with the tree. The ripe fruit pulp is considered a delicacy, used to prepare festive dishes like taaler bora, fritters traditionally made during Janmashtami. However, the jaggery made from the sap, taaler gur, remains relatively unknown and carries no such ritual or religious associations.
A palm sweet story of the Shiulis’
Taaler gud is seasonal, tapped and processed between April and July. It has a distinct profile, caramelised, slightly smoky, and with faint fermented notes. Used in traditional Bengali sweets like talshansh, taaler bora, pitha, and refreshing local drinks such as pana or sherbat, taaler gud fits like a glove on the sweet-loving sensibilities of Bengal.
The gud is commonly found in two forms. A liquid version and a solid version that is sun-dried and molded into blocks. When freshly collected, the sap of palmyra neera, a naturally sweet, non-alcoholic drink, can be consumed as is. If left to ferment, it turns into toddy, a mildly alcoholic beverage.
The process of making taal gud hinges mostly on the knowledge systems of shiuli, people whose families have known how to collect it for generations. Unlike some other traditional professions, this work is not tied to a specific caste or community and is instead often passed down informally within distinct groups of people.
It begins with the collection of taaler rosh, the sap, which owes its characteristic smokiness to the traditional practice of pre-smoking the earthen pots used for collection. Once collected, the sap is boiled over open fires in wide, flat steel pans and stirred continuously until it reduces into a thick, velvety mass. The final product is then stored in large earthen vessels to cool and cure.
The stirring process is key here. The more you stir the simmering sap, the finer the texture and the lighter the jaggery. The end product appears in several forms. The liquid version, known as jhola gur, is intensely aromatic but highly perishable, making it difficult to store or transport. The solidified version, patali, is made through longer cooking and caramelisation, which gives a denser, more shelf-stable jaggery.
Between these two forms lies a lesser-known variant, a buttery, semi-solid "crema" of jaggery. This middle stage, made and promoted by Aamar Khamar, a social enterprise that is working towards reviving heirloom rice varieties, has a texture that is easily spreadable, cookable, and with a longer shelf life that extends well beyond the short harvesting window.
Aamar Khamar has taken a community-based approach with taaler gur. Working closely with small farmers in the region, many of whom once tapped these trees only for home use, the organisation has helped build a small commercial ecosystem around this forgotten summer sweetener. They now offer over 50 varieties of traditionally cultivated rice and are helping expand the reach of taaler gur as part of a broader effort to protect Bengal’s food biodiversity.
The gur can easily be used in traditional dishes like Badshabhog chal-er payesh and homemade curd sweetened with palm jaggery. Its semi-solid form can be stirred into coffee, spread on bread, made into a salad, mixed into yoghurt, with fruit, or added to something as simple as a fresh lime soda.
A sweet future will need more than one gur
A significant amount of taaler gud comes from the North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. Yet, even within Bengal, awareness about this jaggery remains surprisingly limited. The cultural and commercial dominance of nolen gur overshadows its summer counterpart, leaving taaler gur largely unnoticed by consumers. The practice and lineage of the shiuli people is thus under threat. With younger generations moving away from this labour-intensive work, many believe the current generation of shiuli could be the last to carry this knowledge forward.This imbalance of awareness and demand also places disproportionate pressure on nolen gur producers and threatens the sustainability of jaggery production.
In winter, sweet shops overflow with confections made with nolen gur. But during the summer, there is no equivalent surge in demand for taaler gur, despite its seasonal relevance. Encouraging people to opt for seasonal variety is not about palates and novelty, but about ecology and economy. Choosing different types of jaggery throughout the year helps ease the strain on specific producers and allows for better quality and less adulteration across the board.
To change this, greater public awareness is needed, not just in reference to taaler gur, but of the value of seasonal diversity in our food choices as a whole. It’s about broadening the surface area of demand. When no single ingredient carries all the weight, the quality of all varieties improves.
Photos & Insights Courtesy: Amar Khamar
